The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 14, sentence 81
This request is, to bring me a man not above a foot and a half high, whose beard is thirty feet long, and who carries on his shoulders a bar of iron of five hundredweight, which he uses as a quarter-staff.”
Who acts: request, beard, prince · What happens: be, carry, use · To what, where: foot, bar, shoulders, five hundredweight
This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (request, beard, prince), 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 | This | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 2 request | det |
| 2 | request | request | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 bring | nsubj |
| 3 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 6 bring | cop |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 6 bring | punct |
| 5 | to | to | PART | _ | 6 bring | mark |
| 6 | bring | bring | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 7 | me | I | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 6 bring | obj |
| 8 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 9 man | det |
| 9 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 bring | obj |
| 10 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 13 foot | advmod |
| 11 | above | above | ADP | _ | 13 foot | case |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 13 foot | det |
| 13 | foot | foot | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 bring | obl |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 16 half | cc |
| 15 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 half | det |
| 16 | half | half | NOUN | Number=Sing NumForm=Word NumType=Frac | 6 bring | conj |
| 17 | high | high | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 16 half | amod |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 long | punct |
| 19 | whose | whose | PRON | Poss=Yes PronType=Rel | 20 beard | nmod:poss |
| 20 | beard | beard | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 long | nsubj |
| 21 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 24 long | cop |
| 22 | thirty | thirty | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 23 feet | nummod |
| 23 | feet | foot | NOUN | Number=Plur | 24 long | obl:unmarked |
| 24 | long | long | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 17 high | advcl |
| 25 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 28 carries | punct |
| 26 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 28 carries | cc |
| 27 | who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 28 carries | nsubj |
| 28 | carries | carry | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 24 long | advcl |
| 29 | on | on | ADP | _ | 31 shoulders | case |
| 30 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 31 shoulders | nmod:poss |
| 31 | shoulders | shoulder | NOUN | Number=Plur | 28 carries | obl |
| 32 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 33 bar | det |
| 33 | bar | bar | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 carries | obj |
| 34 | of | of | ADP | _ | 35 iron | case |
| 35 | iron | iron | NOUN | Number=Sing | 33 bar | nmod |
| 36 | of | of | ADP | _ | 38 hundredweight | case |
| 37 | five | five | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 38 hundredweight | nummod |
| 38 | hundredweight | hundredweight | NOUN | Number=Sing | 35 iron | nmod |
| 39 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 42 uses | punct |
| 40 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 42 uses | obj |
| 41 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 42 uses | nsubj |
| 42 | uses | use | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 38 hundredweight | acl:relcl |
| 43 | as | as | ADP | _ | 47 staff | case |
| 44 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 47 staff | det |
| 45 | quarter | quarter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 47 staff | compound |
| 46 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 45 quarter | punct |
| 47 | staff | staff | NOUN | Number=Sing | 42 uses | obl |
| 48 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 16 half | punct |
| 49 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 6 bring | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | present | this request | a foot | me obj; a man obj; a half conj; bring property | tree rules | |||
| 2 | is | present | beard | thirty feet obl:unmarked; long property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | carry | present | a bar of iron of five hundredweight | prince's shoulders | who nsubj | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bar=Theme | |||
| 4 | use | present | prince | five hundredweight | as a quarter staff | vn spend_time-104 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Agent which=Duration as staff=Attribute |
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/pg65965/14/81/