The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, sentence 13

He was very seldom serious, but then he had a way when he was thinking of stroking his hair over his forehead, which made him look old enough to sit in his father’s council!

Who acts: Petru, forehead · What happens: be, have, think, stroke, make, look · To what, where: way, hair, forehead, Petru, council

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 (Petru, forehead), 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	5 serious	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 serious	cop
3	very	very	ADV	_	4 seldom	advmod
4	seldom	seldom	ADV	_	5 serious	advmod
5	serious	serious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 had	punct
7	but	but	CCONJ	_	10 had	cc
8	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	10 had	advmod
9	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 had	nsubj
10	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 serious	parataxis
11	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 way	det
12	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 had	obj
13	when	when	SCONJ	_	16 thinking	mark
14	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 thinking	nsubj
15	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 thinking	aux
16	thinking	think	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	10 had	advcl
17	of	of	SCONJ	_	18 stroking	mark
18	stroking	stroke	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	16 thinking	advcl
19	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 hair	nmod:poss
20	hair	hair	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 stroking	obj
21	over	over	ADP	_	23 forehead	case
22	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	23 forehead	nmod:poss
23	forehead	forehead	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 stroking	obl
24	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 made	punct
25	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	26 made	nsubj
26	made	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	23 forehead	acl:relcl
27	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 made	obj
28	look	look	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	26 made	xcomp
29	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 look	xcomp
30	enough	enough	ADV	_	29 old	advmod
31	to	to	PART	_	32 sit	mark
32	sit	sit	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	29 old	advcl
33	in	in	ADP	_	37 council	case
34	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	35 father	nmod:poss
35	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 council	nmod:poss
36	’s	's	PART	_	35 father	case
37	council	council	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 sit	obl
38	!	!	PUNCT	_	5 serious	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is	past	Petru				seldom, serious property	tree rules
2	have	past	Petru	a way		then		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Patient
3	think speech: other	past · progressive	Petru					vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	stroke	gerund	Petru not said here	Petru's hair	Petru's forehead			vn touch-20-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hair=Experiencer
5	make	past	Petru's forehead	Petru				tree rules
6	look	infinitive	Petru not said here				old property	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus
7	sit	to-infinitive	Petru not said here		Petru's father's council			vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in council=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.

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