The Green Fairy Book, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife, sentence 8

‘Well,’ said the man, ‘you need not make so much noise about it; I am sure I had much better let a flounder that can talk swim away.’

Who acts: you, I, flounder · What happens: say, not make, be, have, let, talk · To what, where: man, much noise, flounder · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of the Fisherman and His Wife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, I, flounder), 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	‘	'	PUNCT	_	5 said	punct
2	Well	well	INTJ	_	5 said	discourse
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	2 Well	punct
4	’	'	PUNCT	_	5 said	punct
5	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 man	det
7	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 said	obj
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 man	punct
9	‘	‘	PUNCT	_	13 make	punct
10	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	13 make	nsubj
11	need	need	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 make	aux
12	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	13 make	advmod
13	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 said	parataxis
14	so	so	ADV	_	15 much	advmod
15	much	much	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 noise	amod
16	noise	noise	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 make	obj
17	about	about	ADP	_	18 it	case
18	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 make	obl
19	;	;	PUNCT	_	22 sure	punct
20	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	22 sure	nsubj
21	am	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	22 sure	cop
22	sure	sure	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 make	conj
23	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	24 had	nsubj
24	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	22 sure	ccomp
25	much	much	ADV	_	26 better	advmod
26	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	24 had	xcomp
27	let	let	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 had	xcomp
28	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	29 flounder	det
29	flounder	flounder	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 let	obj
30	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	32 talk	nsubj
31	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	32 talk	aux
32	talk	talk	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	29 flounder	acl:relcl
33	swim	swim	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	32 talk	xcomp
34	away	away	ADV	_	33 swim	advmod
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 said	punct
36	’	'	PUNCT	_	5 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	past		the man		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent man=Topic
2	not make	present	you	much noise	about noise	vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent noise=Product
3	is	present	I		sure property	tree rules
4	have	past	I		good property	tree rules
5	let	infinitive	I not said here	a flounder		vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flounder=Theme
6	talk	can	a flounder			tree rules
7	swim away	infinitive	a flounder not said here		away property	vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=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/pg7277/54/8/