The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 16, sentence 49
“I have heard tales of birds talking,” said Chang, “but may I be beaten if I haven’t got hold of a fish that talks.”
Who acts: Chang, birds, fish · What happens: hear, talk, say, beat, not get, tell · To what, where: tales, Chang, hold, fish · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Chang, birds, fish), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 4 heard | punct |
| 2 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 4 heard | nsubj |
| 3 | have | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 4 heard | aux |
| 4 | heard | hear | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 11 said | ccomp |
| 5 | tales | tale | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 heard | obj |
| 6 | of | of | ADP | _ | 7 birds | case |
| 7 | birds | bird | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 tales | nmod |
| 8 | talking | talk | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 7 birds | acl |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 4 heard | punct |
| 10 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 4 heard | punct |
| 11 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 12 | Chang | Chang | PROPN | Number=Sing | 11 said | nsubj |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 beaten | punct |
| 14 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 19 beaten | punct |
| 15 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 19 beaten | cc |
| 16 | may | may | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 19 beaten | aux |
| 17 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 19 beaten | nsubj |
| 18 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 19 beaten | aux:pass |
| 19 | beaten | beat | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 11 said | parataxis |
| 20 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 24 got | mark |
| 21 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 24 got | nsubj |
| 22 | have | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 24 got | aux |
| 23 | n’t | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 24 got | advmod |
| 24 | got | get | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 19 beaten | advcl |
| 25 | hold | hold | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 got | obj |
| 26 | of | of | ADP | _ | 28 fish | case |
| 27 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 28 fish | det |
| 28 | fish | fish | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 hold | nmod |
| 29 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 30 talks | nsubj |
| 30 | talks | talk | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 28 fish | acl:relcl |
| 31 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 11 said | punct |
| 32 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 11 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | hear in a quote | present · perfect | Chang | tales of birds | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer tale=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | talk in a quote | gerund | birds not said here | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | say speech: assert | past | Chang | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 4 | beat in a quote | may · passive | Chang | vn sound_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme | |||||
| 5 | not get a condition, not said to happen, in a quote | present · perfect | Chang | hold of a fish | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer hold=Stimulus | ||||
| 6 | talk in a quote | present | a fish | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 7 | tell in a quote | birds | nom tale «communication intransitive»: of=agent | ||||||
| 8 | hold in a quote | a fish | nom hold «act transitive»: of=patient |
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/pg65965/16/49/