The Violet Fairy Book, The Underground Workers, sentence 27

Their heads were bigger than their little bodies, and their hammers twice the size of themselves, but the strongest men on earth could not have handled their iron clubs more stoutly or given lustier blows.

Who acts: heads · What happens: be, not handle, give · To what, where: strongest men, lustier blows

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 (heads), 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	Their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 heads	nmod:poss
2	heads	head	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 bigger	nsubj
3	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 bigger	cop
4	bigger	big	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	root	root
5	than	than	ADP	_	8 bodies	case
6	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 bodies	nmod:poss
7	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 bodies	amod
8	bodies	body	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 bigger	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 hammers	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 hammers	cc
11	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	12 hammers	nmod:poss
12	hammers	hammer	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 bigger	obl
13	twice	twice	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	15 size	advmod
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 size	det
15	size	size	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 hammers	nmod
16	of	of	ADP	_	17 themselves	case
17	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	15 size	nmod
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 handled	punct
19	but	but	CCONJ	_	28 handled	cc
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 men	det
21	strongest	strong	ADJ	Degree=Sup	22 men	amod
22	men	man	NOUN	Number=Plur	28 handled	nsubj:pass
23	on	on	ADP	_	24 earth	case
24	earth	earth	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 men	nmod
25	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	28 handled	aux
26	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	28 handled	advmod
27	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	28 handled	aux
28	handled	handle	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 bigger	parataxis
29	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 clubs	nmod:poss
30	iron	iron	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 clubs	compound
31	clubs	club	NOUN	Number=Plur	28 handled	obj
32	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	33 stoutly	advmod
33	stoutly	stoutly	ADV	_	28 handled	advmod
34	or	or	CCONJ	_	35 given	cc
35	given	give	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	28 handled	conj
36	lustier	lusty	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	37 blows	amod
37	blows	blow	NOUN	Number=Plur	35 given	obj
38	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 bigger	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is	past	smiths's heads		than smiths's little bodies; smiths's hammers the size of hammers obl; big property	tree rules
2	not handle	could · perfect · passive		the strongest men on earth	stoutly property	tree rules
3	give	participle		lustier blows		vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent blow=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.

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