Indian tales of the great ones among men, women, and bird-people, Opening, part 2, sentence 134
The King sat steadfast: but alas! the bird seemed to grow heavier, with each fresh gift of the King’s flesh.
Who acts: King, alas · What happens: sit, seem, grow, gift · To what, where: flesh
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 (King, alas), 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 King | det |
| 2 | King | King | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 sat | nsubj |
| 3 | sat | sit | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | steadfast | steadfast | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 sat | xcomp |
| 5 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 11 seemed | punct |
| 6 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 7 alas | cc |
| 7 | alas | ala | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 seemed | nsubj |
| 8 | ! | ! | PUNCT | _ | 7 alas | punct |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 bird | det |
| 10 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 seemed | nsubj |
| 11 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 sat | conj |
| 12 | to | to | PART | _ | 13 grow | mark |
| 13 | grow | grow | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 11 seemed | xcomp |
| 14 | heavier | heavy | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 13 grow | xcomp |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 gift | punct |
| 16 | with | with | ADP | _ | 19 gift | case |
| 17 | each | each | DET | PronType=Tot | 19 gift | det |
| 18 | fresh | fresh | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 19 gift | amod |
| 19 | gift | gift | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 seemed | obl |
| 20 | of | of | ADP | _ | 24 flesh | case |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 King | det |
| 22 | King | King | PROPN | Number=Sing | 24 flesh | nmod:poss |
| 23 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 22 King | case |
| 24 | flesh | flesh | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 gift | nmod |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 sat | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | sit | past | the King | steadfast property | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | seem | past | alas | with each fresh gift of the King's flesh; the bird nsubj | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute | ||||
| 3 | grow | to-infinitive | alas not said here | heavy property | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 4 | gift | the King's flesh | nom gift «possession transitive»: of=patient |
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/pg69647/2/134/