The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of a Gazelle, sentence 22

‘Why, that you, a gazelle, should be able to speak, for, from the beginning, my father and mother and all the people that are in the world have never told me of a talking gazelle.’

Who acts: you, people · What happens: be, speak, not tell, talk · To what, where: world, beginning, me · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of a Gazelle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, people), 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	_	2 Why	punct
2	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	root	root
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 able	punct
4	that	that	SCONJ	_	12 able	mark
5	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	12 able	nsubj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 gazelle	punct
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 gazelle	det
8	gazelle	gazelle	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 you	appos
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 gazelle	punct
10	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 able	aux
11	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	12 able	cop
12	able	able	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 Why	advcl:relcl
13	to	to	PART	_	14 speak	mark
14	speak	speak	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 able	xcomp
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 beginning	punct
16	for	for	ADP	_	20 beginning	case
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 beginning	punct
18	from	from	ADP	_	20 beginning	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 beginning	det
20	beginning	beginning	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 told	nsubj:pass
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 father	punct
22	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	23 father	nmod:poss
23	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 beginning	conj
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 mother	cc
25	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 father	conj
26	and	and	CCONJ	_	29 people	cc
27	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	29 people	det:predet
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	29 people	det
29	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 beginning	conj
30	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	34 world	nsubj
31	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	34 world	cop
32	in	in	ADP	_	34 world	case
33	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	34 world	det
34	world	world	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 people	acl:relcl
35	have	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	37 told	aux
36	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	37 told	advmod
37	told	tell	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	14 speak	ccomp
38	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	37 told	iobj
39	of	of	ADP	_	42 gazelle	case
40	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	42 gazelle	det
41	talking	talk	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	42 gazelle	amod
42	gazelle	gazelle	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 told	obl
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 Why	punct
44	’	'	PUNCT	_	2 Why	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	is	should	you				able property	tree rules
2	speak speech: other	to-infinitive	you not said here					tree rules
3	is	present	all people			the world		tree rules
4	not tell speech: assert	present · perfect · passive		the beginning and my father and mother and all people	me		of a talking gazelle	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient i=Topic
5	talk	gerund						vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: 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/pg641/15/22/