The Green Fairy Book, The Three Dogs, sentence 5
And so he started on his travels, driving his three sheep in front of him, and for a long time it seemed as if fortune didn’t mean to favour him at all.
Who acts: house, it, fortune · What happens: start, travel, drive, seem, not mean, favour · To what, where: three sheep, front, house, all
This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Three Dogs. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (house, it, fortune), 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 | And | and | CCONJ | _ | 4 started | cc |
| 2 | so | so | ADV | _ | 4 started | advmod |
| 3 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 started | nsubj |
| 4 | started | start | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | on | on | SCONJ | _ | 7 travels | mark |
| 6 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 7 travels | nmod:poss |
| 7 | travels | travel | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 4 started | advcl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 driving | punct |
| 9 | driving | drive | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 7 travels | advcl |
| 10 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 12 sheep | nmod:poss |
| 11 | three | three | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 12 sheep | nummod |
| 12 | sheep | sheep | NOUN | Number=Plur | 9 driving | obj |
| 13 | in | in | ADP | _ | 14 front | case |
| 14 | front | front | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 driving | obl |
| 15 | of | of | ADP | _ | 16 him | case |
| 16 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 front | nmod |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 seemed | punct |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 24 seemed | cc |
| 19 | for | for | ADP | _ | 22 time | case |
| 20 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 22 time | det |
| 21 | long | long | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 22 time | amod |
| 22 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 seemed | obl |
| 23 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 24 seemed | nsubj |
| 24 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 started | conj |
| 25 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 30 mean | mark |
| 26 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 30 mean | mark |
| 27 | fortune | fortune | NOUN | Number=Sing | 30 mean | nsubj |
| 28 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 30 mean | aux |
| 29 | n’t | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 30 mean | advmod |
| 30 | mean | mean | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 24 seemed | xcomp |
| 31 | to | to | PART | _ | 32 favour | mark |
| 32 | favour | favour | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 30 mean | xcomp |
| 33 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 32 favour | obj |
| 34 | at | at | ADP | _ | 35 all | case |
| 35 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 32 favour | obl |
| 36 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 started | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | start | past | house | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality | |||||
| 2 | travel | present | house not said here | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 3 | drive | gerund | house not said here | house's three sheep | front of house | vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent sheep=Theme in front=Destination | |||
| 4 | seem | past | it | time | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute | ||||
| 5 | not mean a condition, not said to happen | past · do-support | fortune | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 6 | favour not said to happen | to-infinitive | fortune not said here | house | all | tree rules |
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/pg7277/56/5/