The Green Fairy Book, The Golden Mermaid, sentence 8
But he gave him the most wretched horse in his stable, because the foolish youth hadn’t asked for a better.
Who acts: father · What happens: give, not ask · To what, where: wretched horse, king, stable, foolish youth
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 (father), 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 | But | but | CCONJ | _ | 3 gave | cc |
| 2 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 gave | nsubj |
| 3 | gave | give | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 gave | iobj |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 horse | det |
| 6 | most | most | ADV | Degree=Sup | 7 wretched | advmod |
| 7 | wretched | wretched | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 horse | amod |
| 8 | horse | horse | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 gave | obj |
| 9 | in | in | ADP | _ | 11 stable | case |
| 10 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 11 stable | nmod:poss |
| 11 | stable | stable | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 horse | nmod |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 asked | punct |
| 13 | because | because | SCONJ | _ | 19 asked | mark |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 youth | det |
| 15 | foolish | foolish | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 16 youth | amod |
| 16 | youth | youth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 asked | nsubj:pass |
| 17 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 19 asked | aux |
| 18 | n’t | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 19 asked | advmod |
| 19 | asked | ask | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 gave | parataxis |
| 20 | for | for | ADP | _ | 22 better | case |
| 21 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 22 better | det |
| 22 | better | good | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 19 asked | obl |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 gave | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | give | past | father | the wretched horse | king | father's stable | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient horse=Theme | ||
| 2 | not ask speech: ask | past · perfect · passive | the foolish youth | for a better | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient |
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/pg7277/52/8/