The Green Fairy Book, The Snuff-box, sentence 54

But his mother told him such a pitiful story of the miserable wretch who had lost everything, and had come from far to ask his help, that at last he promised to see him.

Who acts: mother, miserable wretch, last, sun · What happens: tell, lose, come, ask, promise, see · To what, where: pitiful story, sun, everything, help · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Snuff-box. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mother, miserable wretch, last, sun), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	4 told	cc
2	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	3 mother	nmod:poss
3	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 told	nsubj
4	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 told	iobj
6	such	such	DET	PronType=Ind	9 story	det:predet
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 story	det
8	pitiful	pitiful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 story	amod
9	story	story	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 told	obj
10	of	of	ADP	_	13 wretch	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 wretch	det
12	miserable	miserable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 wretch	amod
13	wretch	wretch	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 story	nmod
14	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	16 lost	nsubj
15	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 lost	aux
16	lost	lose	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	13 wretch	acl:relcl
17	everything	everything	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Tot	16 lost	obj
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 come	punct
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 come	cc
20	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 come	aux
21	come	come	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	4 told	parataxis
22	from	from	ADP	_	23 far	case
23	far	far	ADV	Degree=Pos	21 come	obl
24	to	to	PART	_	25 ask	mark
25	ask	ask	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	23 far	advcl
26	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	27 help	nmod:poss
27	help	help	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 ask	obj
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 promised	punct
29	that	that	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	31 last	det
30	at	at	ADP	_	31 last	case
31	last	last	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 promised	nsubj
32	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 promised	nsubj
33	promised	promise	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 told	conj
34	to	to	PART	_	35 see	mark
35	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	33 promised	xcomp
36	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	35 see	obj
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 told	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	past	sun's mother	such pitiful story of the miserable wretch	sun	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient story=Topic
2	lose	past · perfect	the miserable wretch	everything		vn succeed-74-3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent everything=Eventuality
3	come	past · perfect				vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme from far=Initial_Location
4	ask speech: ask	to-infinitive		sun's help		vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent help=Recipient
5	promise speech: promise	past	that last			vn promise-37.13 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
6	see not said to happen	to-infinitive	that last not said here	sun		vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Stimulus
7	help		sun			nom help «act transitive»: poss=agent

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/pg7277/20/54/