The Violet Fairy Book, Jesper Who Herded the Hares, sentence 10

Rich merchants and foreign princes presented themselves one after the other, so that some days the number of them was quite annoying; but, though they could all produce magnificent pearls, not one of them could perform even the simplest of the tasks set them.

Who acts: Rich merchants, number, merchants, magnificent pearls, tasks · What happens: present, be, produce, perform, set · To what, where: merchants, days, simplest, pearls

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Jesper Who Herded the Hares. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Rich merchants, number, merchants, magnificent pearls), 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	Rich	rich	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 merchants	amod
2	merchants	merchant	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 presented	nsubj
3	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 princes	cc
4	foreign	foreign	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 princes	amod
5	princes	prince	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 merchants	conj
6	presented	present	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	6 presented	obj
8	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	6 presented	obj
9	after	after	ADP	_	11 other	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 other	det
11	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 one	nmod
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 days	punct
13	so	so	SCONJ	_	16 days	case
14	that	that	SCONJ	_	13 so	fixed
15	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	16 days	det
16	days	day	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 presented	obl
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 number	det
18	number	number	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 annoying	nsubj
19	of	of	ADP	_	20 them	case
20	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 number	nmod
21	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	23 annoying	cop
22	quite	quite	ADV	_	23 annoying	advmod
23	annoying	annoying	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 days	acl:relcl
24	;	;	PUNCT	_	31 produce	punct
25	but	but	CCONJ	_	31 produce	cc
26	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 produce	punct
27	though	though	SCONJ	_	31 produce	mark
28	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 produce	nsubj
29	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	31 produce	aux
30	all	all	ADV	_	31 produce	advmod
31	produce	produce	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 presented	parataxis
32	magnificent	magnificent	ADJ	Degree=Pos	33 pearls	amod
33	pearls	pearl	NOUN	Number=Plur	40 perform	nsubj
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	36 one	punct
35	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	36 one	advmod
36	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	33 pearls	appos
37	of	of	ADP	_	38 them	case
38	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	36 one	nmod
39	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	40 perform	aux
40	perform	perform	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	31 produce	parataxis
41	even	even	ADV	_	43 simplest	advmod
42	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	43 simplest	det
43	simplest	simple	ADJ	Degree=Sup	40 perform	obj
44	of	of	SCONJ	_	47 set	mark
45	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	46 tasks	det
46	tasks	task	NOUN	Number=Plur	47 set	nsubj
47	set	set	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	43 simplest	advcl
48	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	47 set	obj
49	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 presented	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	present	past	Rich merchants and foreign princes	merchants = merchant	day		tree rules
2	is	past	the number of merchants	some days not said here		annoying property	tree rules
3	produce	could	merchants = merchant			all property	vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
4	perform	could	magnificent pearls	the simplest			vn performance-26.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent simple=Theme
5	set	present	the tasks	pearls = pearl			vn other_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient they=Result

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/pg641/24/10/