The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 22, sentence 85

To his surprise, two old men, with long, white beards, were sitting inside playing chess, as quietly as mice, with their eyes fixed on the chessboard.

Who acts: two old men, Wang · What happens: sit, play, fix, surprise · To what, where: chess, eyes, chessboard

This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (two old men, Wang), 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	To	to	ADP	_	3 surprise	case
2	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	3 surprise	nmod:poss
3	surprise	surprise	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 sitting	obl
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 surprise	punct
5	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	7 men	nummod
6	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 men	amod
7	men	man	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 sitting	nsubj
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 beards	punct
9	with	with	ADP	_	13 beards	case
10	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 beards	amod
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 long	punct
12	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 beards	amod
13	beards	beard	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 men	conj
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 men	punct
15	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 sitting	aux
16	sitting	sit	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
17	inside	inside	ADP	_	18 playing	mark
18	playing	play	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	16 sitting	advcl
19	chess	chess	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 playing	obj
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 quietly	punct
21	as	as	ADV	_	22 quietly	advmod
22	quietly	quietly	ADV	_	16 sitting	advmod
23	as	as	ADP	_	24 mice	case
24	mice	mouse	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 quietly	obl
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 eyes	punct
26	with	with	ADP	_	28 eyes	case
27	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	28 eyes	nmod:poss
28	eyes	eye	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 sitting	parataxis
29	fixed	fix	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	28 eyes	acl
30	on	on	ADP	_	32 chessboard	case
31	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	32 chessboard	det
32	chessboard	chessboard	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 fixed	obl
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	16 sitting	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	sit	past · progressive	two old men and long white beards			to Wang's surprise; mice's eyes parataxis; quietly property	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	play	gerund	two old men and long white beards not said here	chess			vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chess=Theme
3	fix	participle		mice's eyes not said here	the chessboard		vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient
4	surprise		Wang				nom surprise «feeling 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 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/pg65965/22/85/

🌲 The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 22, sentence 85

The tree

Pragmatics

The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 22, sentence 85