The Green Fairy Book, Heart of Ice, part 2, sentence 2

As they neared the coast they wondered if this could be another uninhabited land, for no human beings could be distinguished, and yet that something was stirring became evident, for in the dust-clouds that moved near the ground small dark forms were dimly visible.

Who acts: seas, coast, this, human beings, something, dust clouds · What happens: near, wonder, be, stir, become, move · To what, where: uninhabited land, ground

This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Heart of Ice, 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 (seas, coast, this, human beings), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher. This tree is Mova's own parse (the en model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	As	as	SCONJ	_	3 neared	mark
2	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 neared	nsubj
3	neared	near	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 coast	det
5	coast	coast	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 wondered	nsubj
6	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 wondered	nsubj
7	wondered	wonder	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 neared	ccomp
8	if	if	SCONJ	_	14 land	mark
9	this	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	14 land	nsubj
10	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	14 land	aux
11	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	14 land	cop
12	another	another	DET	PronType=Ind	14 land	det
13	uninhabited	uninhabited	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 land	amod
14	land	land	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 wondered	advcl
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 distinguished	punct
16	for	for	SCONJ	_	22 distinguished	mark
17	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	19 beings	det
18	human	human	ADJ	Degree=Pos	19 beings	amod
19	beings	being	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 distinguished	nsubj
20	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	22 distinguished	aux
21	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	22 distinguished	cop
22	distinguished	distinguished	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 wondered	parataxis
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 became	punct
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	30 became	cc
25	yet	yet	ADV	_	30 became	advmod
26	that	that	SCONJ	_	30 became	mark
27	something	something	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	30 became	nsubj
28	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	29 stirring	aux
29	stirring	stir	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	27 something	acl
30	became	become	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	22 distinguished	conj
31	evident	evident	ADJ	Degree=Pos	30 became	xcomp
32	,	,	PUNCT	_	38 clouds	punct
33	for	for	ADP	_	38 clouds	case
34	in	in	ADP	_	38 clouds	case
35	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	38 clouds	det
36	dust	dust	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 clouds	compound
37	-	-	PUNCT	_	36 dust	punct
38	clouds	cloud	NOUN	Number=Plur	30 became	obl
39	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	40 moved	nsubj
40	moved	move	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	38 clouds	acl:relcl
41	near	near	ADP	_	43 ground	case
42	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	43 ground	det
43	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 moved	obl
44	small	small	ADJ	Degree=Pos	46 forms	amod
45	dark	dark	ADJ	Degree=Pos	46 forms	amod
46	forms	form	NOUN	Number=Plur	49 visible	nsubj
47	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	49 visible	cop
48	dimly	dimly	ADV	_	49 visible	advmod
49	visible	visible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	40 moved	obl
50	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 neared	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	near	past	seas = sea					tree rules
2	wonder speech: ask	past	the coast					vn care-88.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
3	is a a condition, not said to happen	could	this	another uninhabited land				tree rules
4	is	could	no human beings				distinguished property	tree rules
5	stir	past · progressive						vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer
6	become	past	something			yet	for the dust clouds; evident property	vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient
7	move	past	the dust clouds		the ground			vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme near ground=Trajectory
8	is	past	small dark forms				dimly, visible property	tree rules

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 Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 7277 (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/pg7277/15/2/