The Green Fairy Book, The White Snake, sentence 39

Here he found a great crowd and much commotion in the streets, and a herald rode about announcing, ‘The King’s daughter seeks a husband, but whoever would woo her must first execute a difficult task, and if he does not succeed he must be content to forfeit his life.’

Who acts: youth, herald rode, daughter, whoever · What happens: find, announce, seek, woo, execute, not succeed · To what, where: great crowd, husband, difficult task, life

This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The White Snake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (youth, herald rode, daughter, whoever), 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	Here	here	ADV	PronType=Dem	3 found	advmod
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 found	nsubj
3	found	find	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 crowd	det
5	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 crowd	amod
6	crowd	crowd	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 found	obj
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 commotion	cc
8	much	much	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 commotion	amod
9	commotion	commotion	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 crowd	conj
10	in	in	ADP	_	12 streets	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 streets	det
12	streets	street	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 commotion	nmod
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 rode	punct
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 rode	cc
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	17 rode	det
16	herald	herald	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 rode	compound
17	rode	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 found	obl
18	about	about	SCONJ	_	19 announcing	mark
19	announcing	announce	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	17 rode	acl
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 seeks	punct
21	‘	'	PUNCT	_	26 seeks	punct
22	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	23 King	det
23	King	King	PROPN	Number=Sing	25 daughter	nmod:poss
24	’s	's	PART	_	23 King	case
25	daughter	daughter	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 seeks	nsubj
26	seeks	seek	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 found	parataxis
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	28 husband	det
28	husband	husband	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 seeks	obj
29	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 woo	punct
30	but	but	CCONJ	_	33 woo	cc
31	whoever	whoever	PRON	PronType=Rel	33 woo	nsubj
32	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	33 woo	aux
33	woo	woo	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	26 seeks	conj
34	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	37 execute	nsubj
35	must	must	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	37 execute	aux
36	first	first	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	37 execute	advmod
37	execute	execute	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	33 woo	ccomp
38	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	40 task	det
39	difficult	difficult	ADJ	Degree=Pos	40 task	amod
40	task	task	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 execute	obj
41	,	,	PUNCT	_	47 succeed	punct
42	and	and	CCONJ	_	47 succeed	cc
43	if	if	SCONJ	_	47 succeed	mark
44	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	47 succeed	nsubj
45	does	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	47 succeed	aux
46	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	47 succeed	advmod
47	succeed	succeed	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	33 woo	conj
48	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	51 content	nsubj
49	must	must	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	51 content	aux
50	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	51 content	cop
51	content	content	ADJ	Degree=Pos	47 succeed	advcl
52	to	to	PART	_	53 forfeit	mark
53	forfeit	forfeit	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	51 content	csubj
54	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	55 life	nmod:poss
55	life	life	NOUN	Number=Sing	53 forfeit	obj
56	.	.	PUNCT	_	26 seeks	punct
57	’	'	PUNCT	_	26 seeks	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	find	past	youth	a great crowd and much commotion in the streets	here	a herald rode obl	vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent crowd=Topic
2	announce speech: other	gerund	a herald rode not said here				vn order-58.3 «NP V S»: agent=Agent
3	seek	present	the King's daughter	a husband			vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent husband=Theme
4	woo	would	whoever				vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Result
5	execute	must	daughter	a difficult task		first property	vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent task=Patient
6	not succeed a condition, not said to happen	present · do-support	youth				vn succeed-74-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
7	is	must	youth			content property	tree rules
8	forfeit	to-infinitive		youth's life			vn contribute-13.2-1-1 «NP V NP.theme (PP)»: agent=Agent life=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/pg7277/50/39/