The grateful elephant, Opening, part 12, sentence 81
“Sirs, when I was a youngster, I used to sit on the ground and eat the little tips of the shoots of this banyan tree.
Who acts: monks, Sirs · What happens: be, use, sit, eat · To what, where: youngster, ground, little tips
This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (monks, Sirs), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 2 Sirs | punct |
| 2 | Sirs | sir | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 used | nsubj |
| 3 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 8 youngster | punct |
| 4 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 8 youngster | advmod |
| 5 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 8 youngster | nsubj |
| 6 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 8 youngster | cop |
| 7 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 8 youngster | det |
| 8 | youngster | youngster | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 Sirs | conj |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 2 Sirs | punct |
| 10 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 11 used | nsubj |
| 11 | used | use | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 12 | to | to | PART | _ | 13 sit | mark |
| 13 | sit | sit | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 11 used | xcomp |
| 14 | on | on | ADP | _ | 16 ground | case |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 ground | det |
| 16 | ground | ground | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 sit | obl |
| 17 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 eat | cc |
| 18 | eat | eat | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 13 sit | conj |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 21 tips | det |
| 20 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 21 tips | amod |
| 21 | tips | tip | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 eat | obj |
| 22 | of | of | ADP | _ | 24 shoots | case |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 shoots | det |
| 24 | shoots | shoot | NOUN | Number=Plur | 21 tips | nmod |
| 25 | of | of | ADP | _ | 28 tree | case |
| 26 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 28 tree | det |
| 27 | banyan | banyan | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 tree | compound |
| 28 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 shoots | nmod |
| 29 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 11 used | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a in a quote | past | monks and the partridge and the elephant = monk | a youngster | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | use in a quote | past | Sirs and a youngster | I nsubj | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | ||||
| 3 | sit in a quote | to-infinitive | Sirs and a youngster not said here | the ground | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on ground=Location | ||||
| 4 | eat in a quote | present | Sirs and a youngster not said here | the little tips of the shoots of this banyan tree | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tip=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 grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Project Gutenberg book 74064 (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/pg74064/12/81/