The Violet Fairy Book, Stan Bolovan, sentence 119
‘Would you believe that I have had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from throwing the club into the moon?’
Who acts: you, I, greatest difficulty · What happens: believe, have, prevent, throw · To what, where: greatest difficulty, man, club, moon · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Stan Bolovan. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I, greatest difficulty), 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 | ‘ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 4 believe | punct |
| 2 | Would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 believe | aux |
| 3 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 4 believe | nsubj |
| 4 | believe | believe | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 5 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 8 had | mark |
| 6 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 8 had | nsubj |
| 7 | have | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 8 had | aux |
| 8 | had | have | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 4 believe | ccomp |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 difficulty | det |
| 10 | greatest | great | ADJ | Degree=Sup | 11 difficulty | amod |
| 11 | difficulty | difficulty | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 had | obj |
| 12 | in | in | SCONJ | _ | 13 preventing | mark |
| 13 | preventing | prevent | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 11 difficulty | acl |
| 14 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 preventing | obj |
| 15 | from | from | SCONJ | _ | 16 throwing | mark |
| 16 | throwing | throw | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 13 preventing | advcl |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 club | det |
| 18 | club | club | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 throwing | obj |
| 19 | into | into | ADP | _ | 21 moon | case |
| 20 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 21 moon | det |
| 21 | moon | moon | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 throwing | obl |
| 22 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 4 believe | punct |
| 23 | ’ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 4 believe | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | believe | would | you | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus | |||||
| 2 | have | present · perfect | I | the greatest difficulty | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent difficulty=Patient | ||||
| 3 | prevent | gerund | the greatest difficulty not said here | man | vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer he=Theme | ||||
| 4 | throw | gerund | the greatest difficulty not said here | the club | into the moon result | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.result»: agent=Causer club=Theme into moon=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/pg641/13/119/