The Violet Fairy Book, The Story of Halfman, sentence 106

The men did as they were ordered, and soon the tower was glowing like coral, but when they flung themselves against it to overthrow it, they caught themselves on fire and were burnt to death.

Who acts: men, tower, relations · What happens: do, order, glow, fling, overthrow, catch · To what, where: relations, tower, fire

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Halfman. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men, tower, relations), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 men	det
2	men	man	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 did	nsubj
3	did	do	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	as	as	SCONJ	_	7 ordered	mark
5	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 ordered	nsubj
6	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 ordered	aux:pass
7	ordered	order	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 did	advcl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 glowing	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 glowing	cc
10	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	14 glowing	advmod
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 tower	det
12	tower	tower	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 glowing	nsubj
13	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 glowing	aux
14	glowing	glow	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 did	advcl
15	like	like	ADP	_	16 coral	case
16	coral	coral	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 glowing	obl
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 caught	punct
18	but	but	CCONJ	_	30 caught	cc
19	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	21 flung	advmod
20	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 flung	nsubj
21	flung	fling	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	30 caught	advcl
22	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	21 flung	obj
23	against	against	ADP	_	24 it	case
24	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 flung	obl
25	to	to	PART	_	26 overthrow	mark
26	overthrow	overthrow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 flung	advcl
27	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 overthrow	obj
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 flung	punct
29	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 caught	nsubj
30	caught	catch	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 did	parataxis
31	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	30 caught	obj
32	on	on	ADP	_	33 fire	case
33	fire	fire	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 caught	obl
34	and	and	CCONJ	_	36 burnt	cc
35	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	36 burnt	aux:pass
36	burnt	burnt	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	30 caught	conj
37	to	to	ADP	_	38 death	case
38	death	death	NOUN	Number=Sing	36 burnt	obl
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 did	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	do	past	the men				vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	order	past · passive		relations = relation			vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme
3	glow	past · progressive	the tower			like coral; soon property	vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	fling	past	relations = relation	relations = relation	tower		vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent themselves=Theme against it=Destination
5	overthrow	to-infinitive	relations = relation not said here	tower			tree rules
6	catch	past	relations = relation	relations = relation	fire		vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent themselves=Theme
7	burnt	past · passive	relations = relation not said here			to death	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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