English Fairy Tales, The History of Tom Thumb, sentence 40

King Arthur one day asked Tom about his parents, wishing to know if they were as small as he was, and whether they were well off.

Who acts: King Arthur, parents, Tom · What happens: ask, wish, know, be · To what, where: Tom

This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The History of Tom Thumb. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (King Arthur, parents, Tom), 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	King	King	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 Arthur	compound
2	Arthur	Arthur	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 asked	nsubj
3	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	4 day	nummod
4	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 Arthur	appos
5	asked	ask	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	Tom	Tom	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 asked	iobj
7	about	about	ADP	_	9 parents	case
8	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 parents	nmod:poss
9	parents	parent	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 asked	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 wishing	punct
11	wishing	wish	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 asked	advcl
12	to	to	PART	_	13 know	mark
13	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	11 wishing	xcomp
14	if	if	SCONJ	_	18 small	mark
15	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 small	nsubj
16	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 small	cop
17	as	as	ADV	_	18 small	advmod
18	small	small	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 know	ccomp
19	as	as	SCONJ	_	21 was	mark
20	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 was	nsubj
21	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 small	advcl
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 off	punct
23	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 off	cc
24	whether	whether	SCONJ	_	28 off	mark
25	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 off	nsubj
26	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	28 off	cop
27	well	well	ADV	Degree=Pos	28 off	advmod
28	off	off	ADV	_	5 asked	parataxis
29	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 asked	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	to whom	other	roles by
1	ask speech: ask	past	King Arthur	Tom	about Tom's parents	vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP PP.topic»: agent=Agent tom=Recipient about parent=Topic
2	wish	gerund	King Arthur not said here			vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
3	know not said to happen	to-infinitive	King Arthur not said here			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
4	is a condition, not said to happen	past	parents = parent		small property	tree rules
5	be	past	Tom			vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	is	past	parents = parent		off, well property	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: «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7439 (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/pg7439/28/40/