The Green Fairy Book, The Story of Caliph Stork, sentence 19

Then, being anxious to know what might be the contents of the scroll, he asked the Vizier if he did not know of anyone who might be able to decipher it.

Who acts: scroll · What happens: be, know, ask, not know, decipher · To what, where: contents, Vizier, pedlar · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Green Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Story of Caliph Stork. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (scroll), 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	Then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	4 anxious	advmod
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Then	punct
3	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	4 anxious	cop
4	anxious	anxious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
5	to	to	PART	_	6 know	mark
6	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 anxious	csubj
7	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	11 contents	nsubj
8	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 contents	aux
9	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	11 contents	cop
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 contents	det
11	contents	contents	NOUN	Number=Ptan	6 know	ccomp
12	of	of	ADP	_	14 scroll	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 scroll	det
14	scroll	scroll	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 contents	nmod
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 asked	punct
16	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 asked	nsubj
17	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 anxious	conj
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 Vizier	det
19	Vizier	Vizier	PROPN	Number=Sing	17 asked	iobj
20	if	if	SCONJ	_	24 know	mark
21	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 know	nsubj
22	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	24 know	aux
23	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	24 know	advmod
24	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 asked	ccomp
25	of	of	ADP	_	26 anyone	case
26	anyone	anyone	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	24 know	obl
27	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	30 able	nsubj
28	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	30 able	aux
29	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	30 able	cop
30	able	able	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 anyone	acl:relcl
31	to	to	PART	_	32 decipher	mark
32	decipher	decipher	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	30 able	xcomp
33	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 decipher	obj
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 anxious	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	when	other	roles by
1	is	gerund				then	anxious property	tree rules
2	know	to-infinitive						vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
3	is a	might		the contents			of the scroll	tree rules
4	ask speech: ask	past	scroll		the Vizier			vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent vizier=Recipient clause=Topic
5	not know a condition, not said to happen	past · do-support	scroll				of anyone	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of anyone=Stimulus
6	is	might					able property	tree rules
7	decipher	to-infinitive		pedlar				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.

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