The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Mermaid, sentence 20
He took hold of it carefully, but in spite of all his caution he touched the wall in trying to pass by some sleeping watchmen.
Who acts: emperor · What happens: take, touch, try, pass, sleep, hold · To what, where: hold, wall, spite, bird, caution
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Golden Mermaid. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (emperor), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 took | nsubj |
| 2 | took | take | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | hold | hold | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 took | obj |
| 4 | of | of | ADP | _ | 5 it | case |
| 5 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 hold | nmod |
| 6 | carefully | carefully | ADV | _ | 2 took | advmod |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 16 touched | punct |
| 8 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 16 touched | cc |
| 9 | in | in | ADP | _ | 10 spite | case |
| 10 | spite | spite | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 touched | obl |
| 11 | of | of | ADP | _ | 14 caution | case |
| 12 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 14 caution | det:predet |
| 13 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 14 caution | nmod:poss |
| 14 | caution | caution | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 spite | nmod |
| 15 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 touched | nsubj |
| 16 | touched | touch | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 took | parataxis |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 wall | det |
| 18 | wall | wall | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 touched | obj |
| 19 | in | in | SCONJ | _ | 20 trying | mark |
| 20 | trying | try | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 16 touched | advcl |
| 21 | to | to | PART | _ | 22 pass | mark |
| 22 | pass | pass | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 20 trying | xcomp |
| 23 | by | by | ADP | _ | 26 watchmen | case |
| 24 | some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 26 watchmen | det |
| 25 | sleeping | sleep | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 26 watchmen | amod |
| 26 | watchmen | watchman | NOUN | Number=Plur | 22 pass | obl |
| 27 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 took | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | take | past | emperor | hold of bird | carefully property | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Theme | |||
| 2 | touch | past | emperor | the wall | spite of emperor's caution | vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme wall=Co-Theme | |||
| 3 | try | gerund | emperor not said here | vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 4 | pass not said to happen | to-infinitive | emperor not said here | by some sleeping watchmen | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme by watchman=Location | ||||
| 5 | sleep | gerund | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 6 | hold | bird | nom hold «act transitive»: of=patient | ||||||
| 7 | spite | emperor's caution | nom spite «feeling transitive»: of=patient |
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/pg7277/52/20/