The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 1, sentence 3

In his young days Simon had been one of the gayest and most active youths of the neighbourhood, but as he grew old and stiff he found it very difficult to walk, and his faithful servant urged him to get a horse so as to save his poor old bones.

Who acts: Simon, neighbourhood, faithful servant · What happens: be, grow, find, walk, urge, get · To what, where: one, neighbourhood, man, horse, poor old bones

This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Simon, neighbourhood, faithful servant), 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	In	in	ADP	_	4 days	case
2	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	4 days	nmod:poss
3	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 days	amod
4	days	day	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 one	obl
5	Simon	Simon	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 one	nsubj
6	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 one	aux
7	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	8 one	cop
8	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	root	root
9	of	of	ADP	_	11 gayest	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 gayest	det
11	gayest	gay	ADJ	Degree=Sup	8 one	nmod
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	15 youths	cc
13	most	most	ADV	Degree=Sup	14 active	advmod
14	active	active	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 youths	amod
15	youths	youth	NOUN	Number=Plur	11 gayest	conj
16	of	of	ADP	_	18 neighbourhood	case
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 neighbourhood	det
18	neighbourhood	neighbourhood	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 youths	nmod
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 grew	punct
20	but	but	CCONJ	_	23 grew	cc
21	as	as	SCONJ	_	23 grew	mark
22	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 grew	nsubj
23	grew	grow	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 one	parataxis
24	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 grew	xcomp
25	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 stiff	cc
26	stiff	stiff	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 old	conj
27	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 found	nsubj
28	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	26 stiff	acl:relcl
29	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 found	obj
30	very	very	ADV	_	31 difficult	advmod
31	difficult	difficult	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 found	xcomp
32	to	to	PART	_	33 walk	mark
33	walk	walk	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	31 difficult	xcomp
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	39 urged	punct
35	and	and	CCONJ	_	39 urged	cc
36	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	38 servant	nmod:poss
37	faithful	faithful	ADJ	Degree=Pos	38 servant	amod
38	servant	servant	NOUN	Number=Sing	39 urged	nsubj
39	urged	urge	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	23 grew	conj
40	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 urged	iobj
41	to	to	PART	_	42 get	mark
42	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	39 urged	xcomp
43	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	44 horse	det
44	horse	horse	NOUN	Number=Sing	42 get	obj
45	so	so	ADV	_	48 save	advmod
46	as	as	SCONJ	_	48 save	mark
47	to	to	PART	_	48 save	mark
48	save	save	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	42 get	advcl
49	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	52 bones	nmod:poss
50	poor	poor	ADJ	Degree=Pos	52 bones	amod
51	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	52 bones	amod
52	bones	bone	NOUN	Number=Plur	48 save	obj
53	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 one	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past · perfect	Simon	one		day	of the gayest and active youths of the neighbourhood	tree rules
2	grow	past	Simon				old property	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	find	past	Simon	neighbourhood			difficult property	vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Topic
4	walk	to-infinitive	neighbourhood not said here					vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	urge	past	man's faithful servant		man			vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: agent=Agent he=Recipient clause=Topic
6	get not said to happen	to-infinitive	man's faithful servant not said here	a horse				vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer horse=Stimulus
7	save	to-infinitive	man's faithful servant not said here	man's poor old bones				vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bone=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: «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/pg7277/26/3/