The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 1, sentence 5

Now it happened that there were three merry rascals hanging about the market-place, who much preferred living on other people’s goods to working for their own living.

Who acts: it, three merry rascals, market place, rascals · What happens: happen, be, hang, prefer, live, work · To what, where: goods

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 (it, three merry rascals, market place, rascals), 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	Now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	3 happened	advmod
2	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 happened	nsubj
3	happened	happen	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	that	that	SCONJ	_	6 were	mark
5	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	6 were	expl
6	were	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 happened	conj
7	three	three	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	9 rascals	nummod
8	merry	merry	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 rascals	amod
9	rascals	rascal	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 were	nsubj
10	hanging	hang	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	9 rascals	acl
11	about	about	ADP	_	15 place	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 place	det
13	market	market	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 place	compound
14	-	-	PUNCT	_	13 market	punct
15	place	place	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 hanging	obl
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 preferred	punct
17	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	19 preferred	nsubj
18	much	much	ADV	_	19 preferred	advmod
19	preferred	prefer	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 place	acl:relcl
20	living	live	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	19 preferred	xcomp
21	on	on	ADP	_	25 goods	case
22	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 people	amod
23	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	25 goods	nmod:poss
24	’s	's	PART	_	23 people	case
25	goods	goods	NOUN	Number=Ptan	20 living	obl
26	to	to	SCONJ	_	27 working	mark
27	working	work	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	20 living	advcl
28	for	for	ADP	_	31 living	case
29	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 living	nmod:poss
30	own	own	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 living	amod
31	living	living	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 working	obl
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 happened	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	where	when	other	roles by
1	happen	past	it		now		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	be	past	three merry rascals	there			vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	hang	gerund	three merry rascals not said here			about the market place	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent about place=Location
4	prefer	past	the market place				vn admire-31.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
5	live not said to happen	gerund	the market place not said here	other people's goods			vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on goods=Location
6	work	gerund	the market place not said here			for rascals's own living	vn employment-95.3 «NP V PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent for living=Beneficiary
7	live		rascals = rascal				nom living «cognition intransitive»: 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/pg7277/26/5/