The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 9, sentence 66
The pedler opened the drawer and showed them a box containing a black powder, and a scroll written in strange characters, which neither the Caliph nor Mansor could read.
Who acts: pedler, box, Caliph · What happens: open, show, contain, write, read · To what, where: drawer, Caliph, black powder, scroll, strange characters
This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (pedler, box, Caliph), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 pedler | det |
| 2 | pedler | pedler | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 opened | nsubj |
| 3 | opened | open | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 drawer | det |
| 5 | drawer | drawer | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 opened | obj |
| 6 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 7 showed | cc |
| 7 | showed | show | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 opened | conj |
| 8 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 7 showed | obj |
| 9 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 10 box | det |
| 10 | box | box | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 showed | obj |
| 11 | containing | contain | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 10 box | acl |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 14 powder | det |
| 13 | black | black | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 powder | amod |
| 14 | powder | powder | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 containing | obj |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 written | punct |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 19 written | cc |
| 17 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 18 scroll | det |
| 18 | scroll | scroll | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 written | nsubj:pass |
| 19 | written | write | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 7 showed | conj |
| 20 | in | in | ADP | _ | 22 characters | case |
| 21 | strange | strange | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 22 characters | amod |
| 22 | characters | character | NOUN | Number=Plur | 19 written | obl |
| 23 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 31 read | punct |
| 24 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 31 read | obj |
| 25 | neither | neither | CCONJ | Polarity=Neg | 27 Caliph | cc:preconj |
| 26 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 27 Caliph | det |
| 27 | Caliph | Caliph | PROPN | Number=Sing | 31 read | nsubj |
| 28 | nor | nor | CCONJ | Polarity=Neg | 29 Mansor | cc |
| 29 | Mansor | Mansor | PROPN | Number=Sing | 27 Caliph | conj |
| 30 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 31 read | aux |
| 31 | read | read | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 22 characters | acl:relcl |
| 32 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 opened | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | open | past | the pedler | the drawer | vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location drawer=Theme | ||||
| 2 | show | past | the pedler not said here | Caliph | a box obj | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient box=Topic | |||
| 3 | contain | gerund | a box not said here | a black powder | vn comprise-107.2-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot powder=Theme | ||||
| 4 | write | participle · passive | a scroll | strange characters | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: subject=Theme in character=Destination | ||||
| 5 | read | could | the Caliph nor Mansor | strange characters | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent which=Topic |
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/pg65965/9/66/