The Violet Fairy Book, The Young Man Who Would Have His Eyes Opened, sentence 22
Thousands of snakes, big and little and of every colour, were gathered together in one great cluster round a huge serpent, whose body was as thick as a beam, and which had on its head a golden crown, from which the light sprang.
Who acts: body, light · What happens: gather, be, have, spring · To what, where: one great cluster, golden crown, head
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Young Man Who Would Have His Eyes Opened. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (body, light), 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 | Thousands | thousand | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 big | nsubj |
| 2 | of | of | ADP | _ | 3 snakes | case |
| 3 | snakes | snake | NOUN | Number=Plur | 1 Thousands | nmod |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 5 big | punct |
| 5 | big | big | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 6 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 7 little | cc |
| 7 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 big | conj |
| 8 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 14 gathered | cc |
| 9 | of | of | ADP | _ | 11 colour | case |
| 10 | every | every | DET | PronType=Tot | 11 colour | det |
| 11 | colour | colour | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 gathered | obl |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 colour | punct |
| 13 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 gathered | aux:pass |
| 14 | gathered | gather | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 5 big | conj |
| 15 | together | together | ADV | _ | 14 gathered | advmod |
| 16 | in | in | ADP | _ | 19 cluster | case |
| 17 | one | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 19 cluster | nummod |
| 18 | great | great | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 19 cluster | amod |
| 19 | cluster | cluster | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 gathered | obl |
| 20 | round | round | ADP | _ | 23 serpent | case |
| 21 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 23 serpent | det |
| 22 | huge | huge | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 23 serpent | amod |
| 23 | serpent | serpent | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 cluster | nmod |
| 24 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 29 thick | punct |
| 25 | whose | whose | PRON | Poss=Yes PronType=Rel | 26 body | nmod:poss |
| 26 | body | body | NOUN | Number=Sing | 29 thick | nsubj |
| 27 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 29 thick | cop |
| 28 | as | as | ADV | _ | 29 thick | advmod |
| 29 | thick | thick | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 23 serpent | amod |
| 30 | as | as | ADP | _ | 32 beam | case |
| 31 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 32 beam | det |
| 32 | beam | beam | NOUN | Number=Sing | 29 thick | obl |
| 33 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 36 had | punct |
| 34 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 36 had | cc |
| 35 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 36 had | nsubj |
| 36 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 big | parataxis |
| 37 | on | on | ADP | _ | 39 head | case |
| 38 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 39 head | nmod:poss |
| 39 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 had | obl |
| 40 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 42 crown | det |
| 41 | golden | golden | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 42 crown | amod |
| 42 | crown | crown | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 had | obj |
| 43 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 48 sprang | punct |
| 44 | from | from | ADP | _ | 45 which | case |
| 45 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 48 sprang | obl |
| 46 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 47 light | det |
| 47 | light | light | NOUN | Number=Sing | 48 sprang | nsubj |
| 48 | sprang | spring | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 36 had | conj |
| 49 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 big | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | gather | past · passive | one great cluster round a huge serpent | of every colour; together property | vn herd-47.5.2 «NP V» | ||||
| 2 | is | past | body | as a beam; thick property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | have | past | a golden crown | body's head | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent crown=Patient | ||||
| 4 | spring | past | the light | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from which=Trajectory |
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/pg641/34/22/