The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 2, sentence 1

He was just going to open his door, when the maiden glided softly past and whispered in his ear: ‘What task has he set you?’

Who acts: He, maiden, task · What happens: go, open, glide, whisper, have, set · To what, where: door, ear, you

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (He, maiden, task), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 going	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 going	aux
3	just	just	ADV	_	4 going	advmod
4	going	go	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 open	mark
6	open	open	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 going	xcomp
7	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 door	nmod:poss
8	door	door	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 open	obj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 glided	punct
10	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	13 glided	advmod
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 maiden	det
12	maiden	maiden	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 glided	nsubj
13	glided	glide	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 going	parataxis
14	softly	softly	ADV	_	15 past	advmod
15	past	past	ADV	_	13 glided	advmod
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 whispered	cc
17	whispered	whisper	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 glided	conj
18	in	in	ADP	_	20 ear	case
19	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 ear	nmod:poss
20	ear	ear	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 whispered	obl
21	:	:	PUNCT	_	25 has	punct
22	‘	'	PUNCT	_	25 has	punct
23	What	what	DET	PronType=Int	24 task	det
24	task	task	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 has	nsubj
25	has	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 going	conj
26	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 set	nsubj
27	set	set	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	25 has	xcomp
28	you	you	PRON	Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs	27 set	obj
29	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 going	punct
30	’	'	PUNCT	_	4 going	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	go	past · progressive	He				vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
2	open	to-infinitive	He not said here	his door			vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location door=Theme
3	glide	past	the maiden			past property	vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	whisper speech: assert	past	the maiden not said here		maiden's ear		vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in ear=Location
5	have	present	what task				tree rules
6	set	infinitive	task	you			vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient you=Result

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/pg641/10/1/