The Violet Fairy Book, The Prince Who Wanted to See the World, sentence 24

‘What is it?’ said the dove, flying in through the open window, and the prince told her of the task before him, and of his despair at being unable to accomplish it.

Who acts: prince · What happens: be, say, fly in, tell, accomplish, despair · To what, where: command, dove, open window, scent · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Prince Who Wanted to See the World. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (prince), 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	‘	'	PUNCT	_	7 said	punct
2	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	4 it	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 it	cop
4	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 said	ccomp
5	?	?	PUNCT	_	4 it	punct
6	’	'	PUNCT	_	4 it	punct
7	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 dove	det
9	dove	dove	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 said	obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 flying	punct
11	flying	fly	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	7 said	advcl
12	in	in	ADV	_	11 flying	advmod
13	through	through	ADP	_	16 window	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 window	det
15	open	open	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 window	amod
16	window	window	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 flying	obl
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 told	punct
18	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 told	cc
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 prince	det
20	prince	prince	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 told	nsubj
21	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 said	conj
22	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 told	iobj
23	of	of	ADP	_	25 task	case
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 task	det
25	task	task	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 told	obl
26	before	before	ADP	_	27 him	case
27	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 told	obl
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	32 despair	punct
29	and	and	CCONJ	_	32 despair	cc
30	of	of	ADP	_	32 despair	case
31	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	32 despair	nmod:poss
32	despair	despair	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 told	parataxis
33	at	at	ADP	_	35 unable	case
34	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	35 unable	cop
35	unable	unable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	32 despair	amod
36	to	to	PART	_	37 accomplish	mark
37	accomplish	accomplish	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	35 unable	xcomp
38	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	37 accomplish	obj
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	present		command					tree rules
2	say speech: assert	past		the dove					vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent dove=Topic
3	fly in	gerund				the open window			vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through window=Location
4	tell speech: assert	past	the prince		scent		before man	of the task	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent she=Recipient
5	is	gerund						unable property	tree rules
6	accomplish	to-infinitive		command					vn complete-55.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality
7	despair		prince						nom despair «state intransitive»: 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/pg641/42/24/