The Violet Fairy Book, The Nunda, Eater of People, sentence 172
They went on merrily along the road, till they came to a thicket, when out sprang the cat, and killed three of the sons.
Who acts: men · What happens: go on, come, spring out, kill · To what, where: road, thicket, cat, three
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nunda, Eater of People. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men), 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 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 went | nsubj |
| 2 | went | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | on | on | ADV | _ | 2 went | advmod |
| 4 | merrily | merrily | ADV | _ | 2 went | advmod |
| 5 | along | along | ADP | _ | 7 road | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 road | det |
| 7 | road | road | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 went | obl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 came | punct |
| 9 | till | till | SCONJ | _ | 11 came | mark |
| 10 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 came | nsubj |
| 11 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 went | parataxis |
| 12 | to | to | ADP | _ | 14 thicket | case |
| 13 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 14 thicket | det |
| 14 | thicket | thicket | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 came | obl |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 sprang | punct |
| 16 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 18 sprang | advmod |
| 17 | out | out | ADP | _ | 18 sprang | compound:prt |
| 18 | sprang | spring | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 came | conj |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 cat | det |
| 20 | cat | cat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 sprang | obj |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 killed | punct |
| 22 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 23 killed | cc |
| 23 | killed | kill | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 went | conj |
| 24 | three | three | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 23 killed | obj |
| 25 | of | of | ADP | _ | 27 sons | case |
| 26 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 27 sons | det |
| 27 | sons | son | NOUN | Number=Plur | 24 three | nmod |
| 28 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 went | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | go on | past | men = man | the road | merrily property | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme along road=Location | |||
| 2 | come | past | men = man | a thicket | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to thicket=Initial_Location | ||||
| 3 | spring out | past | men = man not said here | the cat | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial_Location cat=Theme | ||||
| 4 | kill | past | men = man not said here | three of the sons | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent three=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/pg641/29/172/