Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose, Opening, part 8, sentence 37
But Gawain swerved aside as the axe came gliding down to slay him as he stood, and shrank a little with the shoulders, for the sharp iron.
Who acts: Gawain, axe · What happens: swerve, come, glide down, slay, stand, shrink · To what, where: Gawain, little
This is a sentence of «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose» by Jessie L. Weston, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Gawain, axe), 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 | But | but | CCONJ | _ | 3 swerved | cc |
| 2 | Gawain | Gawain | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 swerved | nsubj |
| 3 | swerved | swerve | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | aside | aside | ADV | _ | 3 swerved | advmod |
| 5 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 8 came | mark |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 axe | det |
| 7 | axe | axe | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 came | nsubj |
| 8 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 swerved | advcl |
| 9 | gliding | glide | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 8 came | xcomp |
| 10 | down | down | ADV | _ | 9 gliding | advmod |
| 11 | to | to | PART | _ | 12 slay | mark |
| 12 | slay | slay | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 9 gliding | advcl |
| 13 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 slay | obj |
| 14 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 16 stood | mark |
| 15 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 stood | nsubj |
| 16 | stood | stand | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 slay | advcl |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 shrank | punct |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 19 shrank | cc |
| 19 | shrank | shrink | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 swerved | conj |
| 20 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 21 little | det |
| 21 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 19 shrank | obl:unmarked |
| 22 | with | with | ADP | _ | 24 shoulders | case |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 shoulders | det |
| 24 | shoulders | shoulder | NOUN | Number=Plur | 19 shrank | obl |
| 25 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 29 iron | punct |
| 26 | for | for | ADP | _ | 29 iron | case |
| 27 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 29 iron | det |
| 28 | sharp | sharp | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 29 iron | amod |
| 29 | iron | iron | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 shrank | conj |
| 30 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 swerved | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | swerve | past | Gawain | aside property | vn meander-47.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | come | past | the axe | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | glide down | gerund | the axe not said here | down property | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 4 | slay | to-infinitive | the axe not said here | Gawain | vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient | ||||
| 5 | stand | past | Gawain | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 6 | shrink | past | Gawain not said here | a little | with the shoulders; the sharp iron conj | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent with shoulder=Instrument |
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: «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Middle-English Arthurian Romance Retold in Modern Prose» by Jessie L. Weston, Project Gutenberg book 66084 (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/pg66084/8/37/