The Violet Fairy Book, A Tale of the Tontlawald, sentence 9

There was also a tale of a magnificent black cat as large as a foal, but men could not believe all the wonders told by the peasant, and it was difficult to make out what was true and what was false in his story.

Who acts: tale, men, magnificent black cat · What happens: be, not believe, tell, make out · To what, where: wonders, story · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, A Tale of the Tontlawald. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tale, men, magnificent black cat), 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	There	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 was	expl
2	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	also	also	ADV	_	2 was	advmod
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 tale	det
5	tale	tale	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	nsubj
6	of	of	ADP	_	10 cat	case
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 cat	det
8	magnificent	magnificent	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 cat	amod
9	black	black	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 cat	amod
10	cat	cat	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 tale	nmod
11	as	as	ADV	_	12 large	advmod
12	large	large	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 cat	amod
13	as	as	ADP	_	15 foal	case
14	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	15 foal	det
15	foal	foal	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 large	obl
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 believe	punct
17	but	but	CCONJ	_	21 believe	cc
18	men	man	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 believe	nsubj
19	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	21 believe	aux
20	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	21 believe	advmod
21	believe	believe	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 was	parataxis
22	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	24 wonders	det:predet
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 wonders	det
24	wonders	wonder	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 believe	obj
25	told	tell	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	24 wonders	acl
26	by	by	ADP	_	28 peasant	case
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 peasant	det
28	peasant	peasant	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 told	obl
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 difficult	punct
30	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 difficult	cc
31	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 difficult	expl
32	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	33 difficult	cop
33	difficult	difficult	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 believe	parataxis
34	to	to	PART	_	35 make	mark
35	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	33 difficult	csubj
36	out	out	ADP	_	35 make	compound:prt
37	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	39 true	nsubj
38	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	39 true	cop
39	true	true	ADJ	Degree=Pos	35 make	xcomp
40	and	and	CCONJ	_	43 false	cc
41	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	43 false	nsubj
42	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	43 false	cop
43	false	false	ADJ	Degree=Pos	39 true	conj
44	in	in	ADP	_	46 story	case
45	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	46 story	nmod:poss
46	story	story	NOUN	Number=Sing	43 false	obl
47	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	past	a tale of a magnificent black cat		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	not believe	could	men	all wonders			vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer wonder=Stimulus
3	tell speech: assert	participle		all wonders not said here		by the peasant	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	is	past				difficult property	tree rules
5	make out	to-infinitive					vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer
6	is	past				true property	tree rules
7	is	past			man's story	false property	tree rules
8	tell		a magnificent black cat				nom tale «communication intransitive»: of=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.

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