The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 24, sentence 1

Now a widower was sharpening his axe on the bank of the river, and when he saw the coffin stop, he went to fish it out of the water.

Who acts: widower · What happens: sharpen, see, go, fish · To what, where: axe, bank, coffin stop, stop, water

This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (widower), 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	Now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	5 sharpening	advmod
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 widower	det
3	widower	widower	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 sharpening	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 sharpening	aux
5	sharpening	sharpen	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
6	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	7 axe	nmod:poss
7	axe	axe	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 sharpening	obj
8	on	on	ADP	_	10 bank	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 bank	det
10	bank	bank	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 sharpening	obl
11	of	of	ADP	_	13 river	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 river	det
13	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 bank	nmod
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 saw	punct
15	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 saw	cc
16	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	18 saw	advmod
17	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 saw	nsubj
18	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 sharpening	parataxis
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 stop	det
20	coffin	coffin	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 stop	compound
21	stop	stop	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 saw	obj
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 went	punct
23	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 went	nsubj
24	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 saw	conj
25	to	to	ADP	_	26 fish	case
26	fish	fish	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 went	xcomp
27	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	26 fish	obj
28	out	out	ADP	_	31 water	case
29	of	of	ADP	_	31 water	case
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 water	det
31	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 fish	obl
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 sharpening	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	roles by
1	sharpen	past · progressive	a widower	widower's axe	the bank of the river	now	vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent axe=Patient
2	see	past	widower	the coffin stop			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer stop=Stimulus
3	go	past	widower				vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	fish	infinitive	widower not said here	stop	the water		vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent it=Theme out water=Location

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/pg65965/24/1/

🌲 The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 24, sentence 1

The tree

Pragmatics

The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 24, sentence 1