The Green Fairy Book, The Biter Bit, part 5, sentence 26
He had hardly gone a few steps when he heard a sound behind him, and, looking round, he saw a carriage made of cardboard, drawn by six big rats, coming towards him.
Who acts: Prince, carriage · What happens: go, hear, look round, see, make, draw · To what, where: few steps, sound, carriage
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Biter Bit, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Prince, carriage), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Checked tree. This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (gutenberg:pg7277:2395): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 gone | nsubj |
| 2 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 gone | aux |
| 3 | hardly | hardly | ADV | _ | 4 gone | advmod |
| 4 | gone | go | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | root | root |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 steps | det |
| 6 | few | few | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 steps | amod |
| 7 | steps | step | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 gone | obl:unmarked |
| 8 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 10 heard | advmod |
| 9 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 heard | nsubj |
| 10 | heard | hear | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 gone | advcl |
| 11 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 12 sound | det |
| 12 | sound | sound | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 heard | obj |
| 13 | behind | behind | ADP | _ | 14 him | case |
| 14 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 heard | obl |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 saw | punct |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 22 saw | cc |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 looking | punct |
| 18 | looking | look | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 22 saw | advcl |
| 19 | round | round | ADV | _ | 18 looking | advmod |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 looking | punct |
| 21 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 22 saw | nsubj |
| 22 | saw | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 gone | conj |
| 23 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 24 carriage | det |
| 24 | carriage | carriage | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 saw | obj |
| 25 | made | make | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 24 carriage | acl |
| 26 | of | of | ADP | _ | 27 cardboard | case |
| 27 | cardboard | cardboard | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 made | obl |
| 28 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 29 drawn | punct |
| 29 | drawn | draw | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 24 carriage | acl |
| 30 | by | by | ADP | _ | 33 rats | case |
| 31 | six | six | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 33 rats | nummod |
| 32 | big | big | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 33 rats | amod |
| 33 | rats | rat | NOUN | Number=Plur | 29 drawn | obl |
| 34 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 35 coming | punct |
| 35 | coming | come | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 22 saw | xcomp |
| 36 | towards | towards | ADP | _ | 37 him | case |
| 37 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 35 coming | obl |
| 38 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 gone | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | go | past · perfect | Prince | a few steps | hardly property | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||
| 2 | hear | past | Prince | a sound | behind father | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer sound=Stimulus | |||
| 3 | look round | gerund | Prince not said here | round property | vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | ||||
| 4 | see | past | Prince | a carriage | tree rules | ||||
| 5 | make | participle | a carriage not said here | of cardboard | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset | ||||
| 6 | draw | participle | a carriage not said here | by six big rats | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 7 | come | gerund | a carriage not said here | towards Prince | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme towards he=Initial_Location |
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: the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg7277/30/26/