The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 11, sentence 31

At first he thought the crier mad, and asked him what he meant by asking forty purses for that tube which seemed to be a thing of no value.

Who acts: crier, tube · What happens: think, ask, mean, seem, be · To what, where: crier, forty purses, thing · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 11. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (crier, tube), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	At	at	ADP	_	2 first	case
2	first	first	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	4 thought	obl
3	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 thought	nsubj
4	thought	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 crier	det
6	crier	crier	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 thought	obj
7	mad	mad	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 crier	amod
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 asked	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	10 asked	cc
10	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 thought	conj
11	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	10 asked	iobj
12	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	14 meant	obj
13	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 meant	nsubj
14	meant	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 asked	ccomp
15	by	by	SCONJ	_	16 asking	mark
16	asking	ask	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	14 meant	advcl
17	forty	forty	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	18 purses	nummod
18	purses	purse	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 asking	obj
19	for	for	ADP	_	21 tube	case
20	that	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	21 tube	det
21	tube	tube	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 asking	obl
22	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	23 seemed	nsubj
23	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 tube	acl:relcl
24	to	to	PART	_	27 thing	mark
25	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	27 thing	cop
26	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	27 thing	det
27	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 seemed	xcomp
28	of	of	ADP	_	30 value	case
29	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	30 value	det
30	value	value	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 thing	nmod
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 thought	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	think speech: other	past	crier	the crier			vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot crier=Theme
2	ask speech: ask	past	crier not said here		crier		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic
3	mean	past	crier			what obj	vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Topic
4	ask speech: ask	gerund	crier not said here	forty purses		for that tube	vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent purse=Recipient
5	seem	past	that tube				vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme
6	is a	to-infinitive	that tube not said here	a thing		of no value	tree rules

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 Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (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/pg65965/11/31/

🌲 The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 11, sentence 31

The tree

Pragmatics

The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 11, sentence 31