The Green Fairy Book, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 3, sentence 78

Before each frame about a dozen people were sitting, hard at work, at which terrible sight I fainted away, and as soon as I recovered they began to ask me what I could do.

Who acts: dozen people, I, people · What happens: sit, faint away, recover, begin, ask, do · To what, where: terrible sight, me · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Prince Vivien and the Princess Placida, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dozen people, I, people), 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	Before	before	ADP	_	3 frame	case
2	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	3 frame	det
3	frame	frame	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 sitting	obl
4	about	about	ADP	_	6 dozen	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 dozen	det
6	dozen	dozen	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	7 people	nummod
7	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 sitting	nsubj
8	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 sitting	aux
9	sitting	sit	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 hard	punct
11	hard	hard	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 sitting	parataxis
12	at	at	ADP	_	13 work	case
13	work	work	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 hard	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 sight	punct
15	at	at	ADP	_	18 sight	case
16	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	18 sight	nsubj
17	terrible	terrible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 sight	amod
18	sight	sight	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 sitting	obl
19	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	20 fainted	nsubj
20	fainted	faint	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 sight	acl:relcl
21	away	away	ADV	_	20 fainted	advmod
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 recovered	punct
23	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 recovered	cc
24	as	as	ADV	_	25 soon	advmod
25	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	28 recovered	advmod
26	as	as	SCONJ	_	28 recovered	mark
27	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	28 recovered	nsubj
28	recovered	recover	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 sitting	parataxis
29	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 began	nsubj
30	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	28 recovered	parataxis
31	to	to	PART	_	32 ask	mark
32	ask	ask	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	30 began	xcomp
33	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	32 ask	iobj
34	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	37 do	obj
35	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	37 do	nsubj
36	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	37 do	aux
37	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	32 ask	ccomp
38	.	.	PUNCT	_	9 sitting	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	sit	past · progressive	dozen people			terrible sight	before each frame		vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before frame=Location
2	faint away	past	I	terrible sight not said here				away property	tree rules
3	recover	past	I					soon property	vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
4	begin	past	people						vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
5	ask speech: ask	to-infinitive	people not said here		me				vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic
6	do	could	I						vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality

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/pg7277/38/78/