The Green Fairy Book, The Little Soldier, sentence 17

The little soldier made straight for the fireplace, seized the tongs, and was stooping down to look for a nice red hot coal with which to light his pipe, when clic! something went, like a spring giving way, and in the very midst of the flames an enormous serpent reared itself up close to his face.

Who acts: little soldier, something, spring, enormous serpent · What happens: make, seize, stoop down, look, light, go · To what, where: little soldier, tongs, pipe, way, serpent, midst

This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Little Soldier. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little soldier, something, spring, enormous serpent), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 soldier	det
2	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 soldier	amod
3	soldier	soldier	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 seized	nsubj
4	made	make	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 soldier	acl
5	straight	straight	ADV	_	8 fireplace	advmod
6	for	for	ADP	_	8 fireplace	case
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 fireplace	det
8	fireplace	fireplace	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 made	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 soldier	punct
10	seized	seize	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 tongs	det
12	tongs	tong	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 seized	obj
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 stooping	punct
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 stooping	cc
15	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 stooping	aux
16	stooping	stoop	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	10 seized	advcl
17	down	down	ADV	_	16 stooping	advmod
18	to	to	PART	_	19 look	mark
19	look	look	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	37 went	advcl
20	for	for	ADP	_	25 coal	case
21	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	25 coal	det
22	nice	nice	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 coal	amod
23	red	red	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 coal	amod
24	hot	hot	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 coal	amod
25	coal	coal	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 look	obl
26	with	with	ADP	_	27 which	case
27	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	29 light	obl
28	to	to	PART	_	29 light	mark
29	light	light	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	25 coal	acl:relcl
30	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 pipe	nmod:poss
31	pipe	pipe	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 light	obj
32	,	,	PUNCT	_	34 clic	punct
33	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	34 clic	advmod
34	clic	clic	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 pipe	conj
35	!	!	PUNCT	_	19 look	punct
36	something	something	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	37 went	nsubj
37	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 stooping	parataxis
38	,	,	PUNCT	_	41 spring	punct
39	like	like	ADP	_	41 spring	case
40	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	41 spring	det
41	spring	spring	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 went	obl
42	giving	give	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	41 spring	acl
43	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	42 giving	obj
44	,	,	PUNCT	_	56 reared	punct
45	and	and	CCONJ	_	56 reared	cc
46	in	in	ADP	_	49 midst	case
47	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	49 midst	det
48	very	very	ADV	_	49 midst	advmod
49	midst	midst	NOUN	Number=Sing	56 reared	obl
50	of	of	ADP	_	52 flames	case
51	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	52 flames	det
52	flames	flame	NOUN	Number=Plur	49 midst	nmod
53	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	55 serpent	det
54	enormous	enormous	ADJ	Degree=Pos	55 serpent	amod
55	serpent	serpent	NOUN	Number=Sing	56 reared	nsubj
56	reared	rear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	10 seized	conj
57	itself	itself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	56 reared	obj
58	up	up	ADV	_	59 close	advmod
59	close	close	ADV	Degree=Pos	56 reared	advmod
60	to	to	ADP	_	62 face	case
61	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	62 face	nmod:poss
62	face	face	NOUN	Number=Sing	59 close	obl
63	.	.	PUNCT	_	10 seized	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	make	participle		the little soldier not said here			for the fireplace	vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP P.asset»: agent=Agent for fireplace=Asset
2	seize	past	the little soldier	the tongs				vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tong=Theme
3	stoop down	past · progressive	the little soldier not said here				down property	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	look	to-infinitive	something not said here				for a nice red hot coal	vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent for coal=Theme
5	light	to-infinitive	something not said here	soldier's pipe			with a nice red hot coal	vn preparing-26.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent pipe=Product with which=Material
6	go	past	something			spring		vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
7	give	gerund	a spring not said here	way				vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Theme
8	rear	past	a enormous serpent	serpent	the midst of the flames		close property	vn rear-26.2.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent itself=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: «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/pg7277/22/17/