Indian tales of the great ones among men, women, and bird-people, Opening, part 2, sentence 119
So nearly perfect was he that the gods asked the greatest God to test his goodness.
Who acts: gods · What happens: be, ask, test · To what, where: King, greatest God, goodness
This is a sentence of «Indian tales of the great ones among men, women, and bird-people» by Cornelia Sorabji, Opening, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gods), 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 | So | so | ADV | _ | 3 perfect | advmod |
| 2 | nearly | nearly | ADV | _ | 3 perfect | advmod |
| 3 | perfect | perfect | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 4 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 he | cop |
| 5 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 perfect | obl |
| 6 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 9 asked | mark |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 gods | det |
| 8 | gods | god | NOUN | Number=Plur | 9 asked | nsubj |
| 9 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 perfect | advcl |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 God | det |
| 11 | greatest | great | ADJ | Degree=Sup | 12 God | amod |
| 12 | God | God | PROPN | Number=Sing | 9 asked | iobj |
| 13 | to | to | PART | _ | 14 test | mark |
| 14 | test | test | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 9 asked | xcomp |
| 15 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 goodness | nmod:poss |
| 16 | goodness | goodness | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 test | obj |
| 17 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 perfect | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | past | King | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | ask speech: ask | past | the gods | the greatest God | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S_INF»: agent=Agent god=Recipient clause=Topic | ||||
| 3 | test not said to happen | to-infinitive | the gods not said here | King's goodness | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent goodness=Theme |
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: «Indian tales of the great ones among men, women, and bird-people» by Cornelia Sorabji, Project Gutenberg book 69647 (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/pg69647/2/119/