The Violet Fairy Book, The Envious Neighbour, sentence 8
Curious to know if the dog had really found anything, the husband began to dig, and very soon the spade struck against something.
Who acts: husband, spade · What happens: know, find, begin, dig, strike · To what, where: dog, something
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Envious Neighbour. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (husband, spade), 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 | Curious | curious | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 2 | to | to | PART | _ | 3 know | mark |
| 3 | know | know | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 1 Curious | advcl |
| 4 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 9 found | mark |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 6 dog | det |
| 6 | dog | dog | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 found | nsubj:pass |
| 7 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 found | aux |
| 8 | really | really | ADV | _ | 9 found | advmod |
| 9 | found | find | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 know | ccomp |
| 10 | anything | anything | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Ind | 9 found | obj |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 began | punct |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 husband | det |
| 13 | husband | husband | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 began | nsubj |
| 14 | began | begin | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 found | parataxis |
| 15 | to | to | PART | _ | 16 dig | mark |
| 16 | dig | dig | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 14 began | xcomp |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 struck | punct |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 23 struck | cc |
| 19 | very | very | ADV | _ | 20 soon | advmod |
| 20 | soon | soon | ADV | Degree=Pos | 23 struck | advmod |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 spade | det |
| 22 | spade | spade | NOUN | Number=Sing | 23 struck | nsubj |
| 23 | struck | strike | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 began | conj |
| 24 | against | against | ADP | _ | 25 something | case |
| 25 | something | something | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Ind | 23 struck | obl |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 1 Curious | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | know | to-infinitive | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus | ||||||
| 2 | find a condition, not said to happen | past · perfect · passive | the dog | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: subject=Theme anything=Attribute | |||||
| 3 | begin | past | the husband | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 4 | dig | to-infinitive | the husband not said here | vn create-26.4-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 5 | strike | past | the spade | something | soon property | vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme against something=Location |
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/pg641/18/8/