The Violet Fairy Book, The Headless Dwarfs, sentence 91
But when he told them of his conversation with Hans they did not know which was the most foolish, master or man.
Who acts: accident, backs · What happens: tell, not know, be, converse · To what, where: backs · Speech: someone speaks here
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 (accident, backs), 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 | _ | 4 told | cc |
| 2 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 4 told | advmod |
| 3 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 told | nsubj |
| 4 | told | tell | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 told | iobj |
| 6 | of | of | ADP | _ | 8 conversation | case |
| 7 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 conversation | nmod:poss |
| 8 | conversation | conversation | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 know | obl |
| 9 | with | with | ADP | _ | 10 Hans | case |
| 10 | Hans | Han | PROPN | Number=Plur | 8 conversation | nmod |
| 11 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 know | nsubj |
| 12 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 know | aux |
| 13 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 14 know | advmod |
| 14 | know | know | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 told | ccomp |
| 15 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 19 foolish | nsubj |
| 16 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 19 foolish | cop |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 foolish | det |
| 18 | most | most | ADV | Degree=Sup | 19 foolish | advmod |
| 19 | foolish | foolish | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 know | ccomp |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 master | punct |
| 21 | master | master | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 foolish | conj |
| 22 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 23 man | cc |
| 23 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 master | conj |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 told | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | tell speech: assert | past | accident | backs = back | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic | ||||
| 2 | not know | past · do-support | backs = back | of accident's conversation with Hans | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of conversation=Stimulus | ||||
| 3 | is | past | foolish property | tree rules | |||||
| 4 | converse | accident | with Hans | nom conversation «communication intransitive»: poss=agent with=obl |
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/pg641/33/91/