The Violet Fairy Book, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, sentence 153

Shall we eat and drink, or shall we follow the runaways?’ and the horse replied, ‘Whether you eat or don’t eat, drink or don’t drink, follow them or stay at home, matters nothing now, for you can never, never catch them.’

Who acts: we, horse, you · What happens: eat, drink, follow, reply, not eat, not drink · To what, where: runaways, horses, home, nothing

This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we, horse, you), 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	Shall	shall	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 eat	aux
2	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 eat	nsubj
3	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 drink	cc
5	drink	drink	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 eat	conj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 follow	punct
7	or	or	CCONJ	_	10 follow	cc
8	shall	shall	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	10 follow	aux
9	we	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	10 follow	nsubj
10	follow	follow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 eat	conj
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 runaways	det
12	runaways	runaway	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 follow	obj
13	?	?	PUNCT	_	3 eat	punct
14	’	'	PUNCT	_	3 eat	punct
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 replied	cc
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 horse	det
17	horse	horse	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 replied	nsubj
18	replied	reply	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 eat	conj
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 eat	punct
20	‘	'	PUNCT	_	23 eat	punct
21	Whether	whether	SCONJ	_	23 eat	mark
22	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	23 eat	nsubj
23	eat	eat	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	18 replied	parataxis
24	or	or	CCONJ	_	27 eat	cc
25	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	27 eat	aux
26	n’t	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	27 eat	advmod
27	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	23 eat	conj
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 drink	punct
29	drink	drink	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	27 eat	conj
30	or	or	CCONJ	_	33 drink	cc
31	do	do	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	33 drink	aux
32	n’t	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	33 drink	advmod
33	drink	drink	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	27 eat	conj
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	35 follow	punct
35	follow	follow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	27 eat	conj
36	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	35 follow	obj
37	or	or	CCONJ	_	38 stay	cc
38	stay	stay	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	35 follow	conj
39	at	at	ADP	_	40 home	case
40	home	home	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 stay	obl
41	,	,	PUNCT	_	42 matters	punct
42	matters	matter	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	35 follow	advcl
43	nothing	nothing	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	42 matters	obj
44	now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	42 matters	advmod
45	,	,	PUNCT	_	52 catch	punct
46	for	for	SCONJ	_	52 catch	mark
47	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	52 catch	nsubj
48	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	52 catch	aux
49	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	52 catch	advmod
50	,	,	PUNCT	_	49 never	punct
51	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	52 catch	advmod
52	catch	catch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	42 matters	advcl
53	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	52 catch	obj
54	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 eat	punct
55	’	'	PUNCT	_	3 eat	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	roles by
1	eat	shall	we				vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	drink	infinitive	we not said here				vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	follow	shall	we	the runaways			vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent runaway=Theme
4	reply speech: assert	participle	the horse				vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	eat	present	you				vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
6	not eat	present · do-support	you not said here				vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
7	drink	infinitive	you not said here				vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
8	not drink	infinitive · do-support	you not said here				vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
9	follow	infinitive	you not said here	horses = horse			vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme
10	stay	infinitive	you not said here		home		vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at home=Location
11	matter	present	you not said here	nothing		now	tree rules
12	not catch	can	you	horses = horse			vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=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/pg641/7/153/