The grateful elephant, Opening, part 13, sentence 85
Flies buzzed round her and ate her up, just as though they were piercing her with needles.
Who acts: Flies · What happens: buzz, eat up, pierce · To what, where: merchant
This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Flies), 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 | Flies | fly | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 buzzed | nsubj |
| 2 | buzzed | buzz | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | round | round | ADP | _ | 4 her | case |
| 4 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 buzzed | obl |
| 5 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 6 ate | cc |
| 6 | ate | eat | VERB | Mood=Ind Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 buzzed | conj |
| 7 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 ate | obj |
| 8 | up | up | ADP | _ | 6 ate | compound:prt |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 piercing | punct |
| 10 | just | just | ADV | _ | 11 as | advmod |
| 11 | as | as | ADV | _ | 15 piercing | advmod |
| 12 | though | though | SCONJ | _ | 15 piercing | mark |
| 13 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 piercing | nsubj |
| 14 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 piercing | aux |
| 15 | piercing | pierce | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 6 ate | advcl |
| 16 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 piercing | obj |
| 17 | with | with | ADP | _ | 18 needles | case |
| 18 | needles | needle | NOUN | Number=Plur | 15 piercing | obl |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 buzzed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | buzz | past | Flies | round merchant | vn animal_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | eat up | past | Flies not said here | merchant | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Patient | ||||
| 3 | pierce | past · progressive | Flies = fly | merchant | with needles | vn poke-19-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent she=Patient with needle=Instrument |
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/pg74064/13/85/