The Violet Fairy Book, The Fairy of the Dawn, part 1, sentence 87

Petru picked out the oldest, and blackest, and most decayed pair of reins, and brought them to the old woman, who murmured something over them and sprinkled them with incense, and held them out to the young man.

Who acts: Petru, old woman · What happens: pick out, decay, bring, murmur, sprinkle, hold out · To what, where: oldest, pair, bits, old woman, something

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, old woman), 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	Petru	Petru	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 picked	nsubj
2	picked	pick	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	out	out	ADP	_	2 picked	compound:prt
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 oldest	det
5	oldest	old	ADJ	Degree=Sup	2 picked	obj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 blackest	punct
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 blackest	cc
8	blackest	black	ADJ	Degree=Sup	2 picked	advcl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 decayed	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 decayed	cc
11	most	most	ADV	Degree=Sup	12 decayed	advmod
12	decayed	decay	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 picked	conj
13	pair	pair	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 decayed	obj
14	of	of	ADP	_	15 reins	case
15	reins	rein	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 pair	nmod
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 brought	punct
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 brought	cc
18	brought	bring	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 picked	conj
19	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 brought	obj
20	to	to	ADP	_	23 woman	case
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 woman	det
22	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 woman	amod
23	woman	woman	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 brought	obl
24	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 murmured	punct
25	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	26 murmured	nsubj
26	murmured	murmur	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	23 woman	acl:relcl
27	something	something	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	26 murmured	obj
28	over	over	ADP	_	29 them	case
29	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 something	nmod
30	and	and	CCONJ	_	31 sprinkled	cc
31	sprinkled	sprinkle	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	26 murmured	conj
32	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 sprinkled	obj
33	with	with	ADP	_	34 incense	case
34	incense	incense	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 sprinkled	obl
35	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 held	punct
36	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 held	cc
37	held	hold	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 picked	conj
38	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	37 held	obj
39	out	out	ADP	_	37 held	compound:prt
40	to	to	ADP	_	43 man	case
41	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	43 man	det
42	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	43 man	amod
43	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 held	obl
44	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 picked	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	pick out	past	Petru	the oldest			vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent old=Patient
2	decay	past	Petru not said here	pair of reins			tree rules
3	bring	past	Petru not said here	bits = bit	the old woman		vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent they=Theme to woman=Destination
4	murmur speech: other	past	the old woman	something		over bits = bit	vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Topic
5	sprinkle	past	the old woman not said here	bits = bit		with incense	vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.destination PP.theme»: agent=Agent they=Destination with incense=Theme
6	hold out	past	Petru not said here	bits = bit		to the young man	vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme

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/pg641/19/87/