The Green Fairy Book, The Three Snake-leaves, sentence 24
One day as he was sitting staring moodily in front of him, he saw a snake creep out of the corner towards the corpse.
Who acts: provision · What happens: sit, stare, see · To what, where: One day, snake creep, corner
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Snake-leaves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (provision), 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 | One | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 2 day | nummod |
| 2 | day | day | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 saw | obl:unmarked |
| 3 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 6 sitting | mark |
| 4 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 sitting | nsubj |
| 5 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 sitting | aux |
| 6 | sitting | sit | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 2 day | acl:relcl |
| 7 | staring | stare | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 6 sitting | advcl |
| 8 | moodily | moodily | ADV | _ | 7 staring | advmod |
| 9 | in | in | ADP | _ | 10 front | case |
| 10 | front | front | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 staring | obl |
| 11 | of | of | ADP | _ | 12 him | case |
| 12 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 front | nmod |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 2 day | punct |
| 14 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 saw | nsubj |
| 15 | saw | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 16 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 18 creep | det |
| 17 | snake | snake | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 creep | compound |
| 18 | creep | creep | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 saw | obj |
| 19 | out | out | ADP | _ | 22 corner | case |
| 20 | of | of | ADP | _ | 22 corner | case |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 corner | det |
| 22 | corner | corner | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 saw | obl |
| 23 | towards | towards | ADP | _ | 25 corpse | case |
| 24 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 25 corpse | det |
| 25 | corpse | corpse | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 corner | nmod |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 15 saw | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | sit | past · progressive | provision | One day not said here | vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location day=Theme | ||||
| 2 | stare | gerund | provision not said here | in front of provision; moodily property | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in front=Theme | ||||
| 3 | see | past | provision | a snake creep | the corner towards the corpse | day | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer creep=Stimulus |
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/pg7277/46/24/