The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars, sentence 101

In time he came to a narrow strait of the sea and across it lay a great whale over whose back people walked and drove as if it had been a bridge or a road.

Who acts: man, sea, people · What happens: come, lie, walk, drive, be · To what, where: narrow strait, great whale

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Three Wonderful Beggars. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, sea, people), 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	In	in	ADP	_	2 time	case
2	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 came	obl
3	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 came	nsubj
4	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	to	to	ADP	_	8 strait	case
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 strait	det
7	narrow	narrow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 strait	amod
8	strait	strait	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 came	obl
9	of	of	ADP	_	11 sea	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 sea	det
11	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 strait	nmod
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 lay	cc
13	across	across	ADP	_	15 lay	mark
14	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 lay	nsubj
15	lay	lie	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 came	conj
16	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	18 whale	det
17	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 whale	amod
18	whale	whale	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 lay	obj
19	over	over	SCONJ	_	23 walked	mark
20	whose	whose	PRON	Poss=Yes PronType=Rel	23 walked	nmod:poss
21	back	back	ADV	_	23 walked	advmod
22	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	23 walked	nsubj
23	walked	walk	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 lay	advcl
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 drove	cc
25	drove	drive	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	23 walked	conj
26	as	as	ADP	ExtPos=ADP	32 bridge	case
27	if	if	SCONJ	_	26 as	fixed
28	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 bridge	nsubj
29	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	32 bridge	aux
30	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	32 bridge	cop
31	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	32 bridge	det
32	bridge	bridge	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 drove	obl
33	or	or	CCONJ	_	35 road	cc
34	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	35 road	det
35	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 bridge	conj
36	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 came	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	come	past	man		a narrow strait of the sea	time		vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to strait=Initial_Location
2	lie	past	sea	a great whale				vn spatial_configuration-47.6 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location whale=Theme
3	walk	past	people					vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	drive	past	people not said here					vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent
5	is	past · perfect	sea				as a bridge or a road	tree rules

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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