The Violet Fairy Book, The Nine Pea-hens and the Golden Apples, sentence 28
In vain his father tried to persuade him that his task was hopeless, and that other girls were to be found as beautiful as this one.
Who acts: task, prince · What happens: try, persuade, be, find, task · To what, where: prince, other girls
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 (task, 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 | In | in | ADP | _ | 4 father | case |
| 2 | vain | vain | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 father | amod |
| 3 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 4 father | nmod:poss |
| 4 | father | father | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 tried | obl |
| 5 | tried | try | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 6 | to | to | PART | _ | 7 persuade | mark |
| 7 | persuade | persuade | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 5 tried | xcomp |
| 8 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 7 persuade | obj |
| 9 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 13 hopeless | mark |
| 10 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 11 task | nmod:poss |
| 11 | task | task | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 hopeless | nsubj |
| 12 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 hopeless | cop |
| 13 | hopeless | hopeless | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 persuade | advcl |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 found | punct |
| 15 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 22 found | cc |
| 16 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 22 found | mark |
| 17 | other | other | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 18 girls | amod |
| 18 | girls | girl | NOUN | Number=Plur | 22 found | nsubj:pass |
| 19 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 22 found | aux:pass |
| 20 | to | to | PART | _ | 22 found | mark |
| 21 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 22 found | aux:pass |
| 22 | found | find | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 5 tried | conj |
| 23 | as | as | ADV | _ | 24 beautiful | advmod |
| 24 | beautiful | beautiful | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 22 found | xcomp |
| 25 | as | as | ADP | _ | 27 one | case |
| 26 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 27 one | det |
| 27 | one | one | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 beautiful | obl |
| 28 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 tried | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | try | past | in prince's vain father | vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 2 | persuade not said to happen | to-infinitive | prince | vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient | |||||
| 3 | is | past | prince's task | hopeless property | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | find | past · passive | other girls | beautiful property | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: subject=Topic | ||||
| 5 | task | prince | nom task «act transitive»: 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/pg641/7/28/