The Violet Fairy Book, The Grateful Prince, part 1, sentence 66
The dogs opened their mouths as if to bark, the toiling oxen seemed about to bellow, but neither bark nor bellow reached the prince.
Who acts: dogs, toiling oxen, bark · What happens: open, bark, toil, seem, bellow, reach · To what, where: mouths, prince
This is a sentence of «The Violet Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Grateful Prince, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dogs, toiling oxen, bark), 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 dogs | det |
| 2 | dogs | dog | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 opened | nsubj |
| 3 | opened | open | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 5 mouths | nmod:poss |
| 5 | mouths | mouth | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 opened | obj |
| 6 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 9 bark | mark |
| 7 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 9 bark | mark |
| 8 | to | to | PART | _ | 9 bark | mark |
| 9 | bark | bark | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 opened | advcl |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 seemed | punct |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 oxen | det |
| 12 | toiling | toil | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 13 oxen | amod |
| 13 | oxen | ox | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 seemed | nsubj |
| 14 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 opened | parataxis |
| 15 | about | about | SCONJ | _ | 17 bellow | mark |
| 16 | to | to | PART | _ | 17 bellow | mark |
| 17 | bellow | bellow | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 14 seemed | xcomp |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 reached | punct |
| 19 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 24 reached | cc |
| 20 | neither | neither | DET | PronType=Neg | 21 bark | det |
| 21 | bark | bark | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 reached | nsubj |
| 22 | nor | nor | CCONJ | Polarity=Neg | 23 bellow | cc |
| 23 | bellow | bellow | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 bark | conj |
| 24 | reached | reach | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 opened | conj |
| 25 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 26 prince | det |
| 26 | prince | prince | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 reached | obj |
| 27 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 opened | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | open | past | the dogs | birds's mouths | vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location mouth=Theme | ||||
| 2 | bark | to-infinitive | the dogs not said here | vn animal_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | toil | gerund | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||||
| 4 | seem | past | the toiling oxen | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute | |||||
| 5 | bellow | to-infinitive | the toiling oxen not said here | vn animal_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 6 | reach | past | neither bark nor bellow | the prince | vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent prince=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/pg641/9/66/