The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 1

There was once a minister who spent his whole time in trying to find a servant who would undertake to ring the church bells at midnight, in addition to all his other duties.

Who acts: minister, servant · What happens: be, spend, try, find, undertake, ring · To what, where: servant, church bells, addition

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Headless Dwarfs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (minister, servant), 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	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	2 was	advmod
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 minister	det
5	minister	minister	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	nsubj
6	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	7 spent	nsubj
7	spent	spend	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 minister	acl:relcl
8	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 time	nmod:poss
9	whole	whole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 time	amod
10	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 spent	obj
11	in	in	SCONJ	_	12 trying	mark
12	trying	try	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	7 spent	advcl
13	to	to	PART	_	14 find	mark
14	find	find	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 trying	xcomp
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 servant	det
16	servant	servant	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 find	obj
17	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	19 undertake	nsubj
18	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	19 undertake	aux
19	undertake	undertake	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 servant	acl:relcl
20	to	to	PART	_	21 ring	mark
21	ring	ring	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	19 undertake	xcomp
22	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 bells	det
23	church	church	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 bells	compound
24	bells	bell	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 ring	obj
25	at	at	ADP	_	26 midnight	case
26	midnight	midnight	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 ring	obl
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 addition	punct
28	in	in	ADP	_	29 addition	case
29	addition	addition	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 ring	obl
30	to	to	ADP	_	34 duties	case
31	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	34 duties	det:predet
32	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	34 duties	nmod:poss
33	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	34 duties	amod
34	duties	duty	NOUN	Number=Plur	29 addition	nmod
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	be	past	a minister		there		once property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	spend	past	a minister			time		vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
3	try	gerund	a minister not said here					vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
4	find not said to happen	to-infinitive	a minister not said here	a servant				vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent servant=Topic
5	undertake	would	a servant					vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
6	ring	to-infinitive	a servant not said here	the church bells	addition to minister's other duties	midnight		vn sound_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bell=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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