The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, sentence 1
Once upon a time what should happen DID happen; and if it had not happened this tale would never have been told.
Who acts: DID, it · What happens: happen, not happen, not tell · To what, where: tale · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (DID, it), 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 | Once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 7 happen | advmod |
| 2 | upon | upon | ADP | _ | 4 time | case |
| 3 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 4 time | det |
| 4 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 happen | obl |
| 5 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 7 happen | nsubj |
| 6 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 7 happen | aux |
| 7 | happen | happen | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 8 | DID | DID | PROPN | Number=Sing | 9 happen | nsubj |
| 9 | happen | happen | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 7 happen | xcomp |
| 10 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 16 happened | punct |
| 11 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 16 happened | cc |
| 12 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 16 happened | mark |
| 13 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 happened | nsubj |
| 14 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 16 happened | aux |
| 15 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 16 happened | advmod |
| 16 | happened | happen | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 7 happen | parataxis |
| 17 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 18 tale | det |
| 18 | tale | tale | NOUN | Number=Sing | 23 told | nsubj:pass |
| 19 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 23 told | aux |
| 20 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 23 told | advmod |
| 21 | have | have | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 23 told | aux |
| 22 | been | be | AUX | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 23 told | aux:pass |
| 23 | told | tell | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 16 happened | parataxis |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 7 happen | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | happen | should | time | once property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | happen | infinitive | DID | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 3 | not happen a condition, not said to happen | past · perfect | it | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 4 | not tell speech: assert | would · perfect · passive | this tale | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
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/pg641/19/1/