The Violet Fairy Book, The Underground Workers, sentence 11

The snow was falling so fast that he could not see three steps in front of him, till the stranger waved his staff, when the drifts parted before them.

Who acts: snow, stranger · What happens: fall, not see, wave, part · To what, where: three steps, front, staff, drifts

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Underground Workers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (snow, stranger), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 snow	det
2	snow	snow	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 falling	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 falling	aux
4	falling	fall	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
5	so	so	ADV	_	6 fast	advmod
6	fast	fast	ADV	Degree=Pos	4 falling	advmod
7	that	that	SCONJ	_	11 see	mark
8	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 see	nsubj
9	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 see	aux
10	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	11 see	advmod
11	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 falling	advcl
12	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	13 steps	nummod
13	steps	step	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 see	obj
14	in	in	ADP	_	15 front	case
15	front	front	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 see	obl
16	of	of	ADP	_	17 him	case
17	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 front	nmod
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 waved	punct
19	till	till	SCONJ	_	22 waved	mark
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 stranger	det
21	stranger	stranger	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 waved	nsubj
22	waved	wave	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 falling	conj
23	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	24 staff	nmod:poss
24	staff	staff	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 waved	obj
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 parted	punct
26	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	29 parted	advmod
27	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	28 drifts	det
28	drifts	drift	NOUN	Number=Plur	29 parted	nsubj:pass
29	parted	part	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	24 staff	acl:relcl
30	before	before	ADP	_	31 them	case
31	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 parted	obl
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 falling	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	fall	past · progressive	the snow				fast property	vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	not see	could	snow	three steps	front of sleeper			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer step=Stimulus
3	wave	past	the stranger	stranger's staff				vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent staff=Patient
4	part	participle · passive		the drifts		before steps = step		vn separate-23.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient

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/pg641/25/11/