The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 3

But the strange thing was that no sooner had the servant set forth to perform his task than he disappeared, as if the earth had swallowed him up.

Who acts: strange thing, thing, servant · What happens: be, set, perform, disappear, swallow up, task · To what, where: task, earth

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 (strange thing, thing, 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	12 set	cc
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 thing	det
3	strange	strange	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 thing	amod
4	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 set	nsubj
5	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 had	cop
6	that	that	SCONJ	_	9 had	mark
7	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	8 sooner	det
8	sooner	soon	ADV	Degree=Cmp	9 had	advmod
9	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 thing	acl:relcl
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 servant	det
11	servant	servant	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 had	obj
12	set	set	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
13	forth	forth	ADV	_	12 set	advmod
14	to	to	PART	_	15 perform	mark
15	perform	perform	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 set	xcomp
16	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	17 task	nmod:poss
17	task	task	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 perform	obj
18	than	than	SCONJ	_	20 disappeared	mark
19	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 disappeared	nsubj
20	disappeared	disappear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 perform	advcl
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 swallowed	punct
22	as	as	SCONJ	_	27 swallowed	mark
23	if	if	SCONJ	_	27 swallowed	mark
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 earth	det
25	earth	earth	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 swallowed	nsubj:pass
26	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 swallowed	aux
27	swallowed	swallow	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	20 disappeared	conj
28	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 swallowed	obj
29	up	up	ADP	_	27 swallowed	compound:prt
30	.	.	PUNCT	_	12 set	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is	past	the strange thing not said here		have, soon property	tree rules
2	set	past	the strange thing		forth property	tree rules
3	perform	to-infinitive	the strange thing not said here	servant's task		vn performance-26.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent task=Theme
4	disappear	past	thing			vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	swallow up a condition, not said to happen	past · perfect · passive		the earth		tree rules
6	task		servant			nom task «act transitive»: poss=agent

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/pg641/33/3/