The Violet Fairy Book, Virgilius the Sorcerer, sentence 5
In front of him was a cave, and, as no boy ever sees a cave without entering it, he went in.
Who acts: boy, cave · What happens: be, see, enter, go in · To what, where: cave, front
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Virgilius the Sorcerer. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, cave), 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 front | case |
| 2 | front | front | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 cave | obl |
| 3 | of | of | ADP | _ | 4 him | case |
| 4 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 front | nmod |
| 5 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 7 cave | cop |
| 6 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 cave | det |
| 7 | cave | cave | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 went | punct |
| 9 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 23 went | cc |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 and | punct |
| 11 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 15 sees | mark |
| 12 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 13 boy | det |
| 13 | boy | boy | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 sees | nsubj |
| 14 | ever | ever | ADV | PronType=Ind | 15 sees | advmod |
| 15 | sees | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 23 went | advcl |
| 16 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 17 cave | det |
| 17 | cave | cave | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 sees | obj |
| 18 | without | without | SCONJ | _ | 19 entering | mark |
| 19 | entering | enter | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 17 cave | acl |
| 20 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 entering | obj |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 sees | punct |
| 22 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 went | nsubj |
| 23 | went | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 7 cave | acl:relcl |
| 24 | in | in | ADV | _ | 23 went | advmod |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 7 cave | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | past | a cave | front of boy | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | see | present | no boy | a cave | ever | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer cave=Stimulus | |||
| 3 | enter | gerund | a cave not said here | cave | vn escape-51.1-1-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme it=Destination | ||||
| 4 | go in | past | boy | a cave not said here | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location cave=Theme |
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/pg641/43/5/