The Violet Fairy Book, The Violet Fairy Book, sentence 11

They have been inherited by our earliest civilised ancestors, who really believed that beasts and trees and stones can talk if they choose, and behave kindly or unkindly.

Who acts: earliest civilised ancestors, beasts, stories · What happens: inherit, civilise, believe, talk, choose, behave · To what, where: stories · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Violet Fairy Book. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (earliest civilised ancestors, beasts, stories), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher. This tree is Mova's own parse (the en model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 inherited	nsubj:pass
2	have	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 inherited	aux
3	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	4 inherited	aux:pass
4	inherited	inherit	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
5	by	by	ADP	_	9 ancestors	case
6	our	our	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 ancestors	nmod:poss
7	earliest	early	ADJ	Degree=Sup	9 ancestors	amod
8	civilised	civilise	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	9 ancestors	amod
9	ancestors	ancestor	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 inherited	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 believed	punct
11	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	13 believed	nsubj
12	really	really	ADV	_	13 believed	advmod
13	believed	believe	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 ancestors	parataxis
14	that	that	SCONJ	_	21 talk	mark
15	beasts	beast	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 talk	nsubj
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 trees	cc
17	trees	tree	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 beasts	conj
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	19 stones	cc
19	stones	stone	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 beasts	conj
20	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	21 talk	aux
21	talk	talk	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	13 believed	ccomp
22	if	if	SCONJ	_	24 choose	mark
23	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 choose	nsubj
24	choose	choose	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	21 talk	advcl
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 behave	punct
26	and	and	CCONJ	_	27 behave	cc
27	behave	behave	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 inherited	conj
28	kindly	kindly	ADV	_	27 behave	advmod
29	or	or	CCONJ	_	30 unkindly	cc
30	unkindly	unkindly	ADV	_	28 kindly	conj
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 inherited	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	inherit	present · perfect · passive	our earliest civilised ancestors	stories = story		vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Theme
2	civilise	participle				tree rules
3	believe	past	our earliest civilised ancestors			vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
4	talk	can	beasts and trees and stones			vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	choose a condition, not said to happen	present	stories = story			vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
6	behave	infinitive	our earliest civilised ancestors not said here		kindly property	vn masquerade-29.6-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Agent

One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

Text: «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 641 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg641/1/11/