English Fairy Tales, _to My Dear Little May_, sentence 21

They serve to justify the title of Merrie England, which used to be given to this country of ours, and indicate unsuspected capacity for fun and humour among the unlettered classes.

Who acts: tales, title · What happens: serve, justify, use, give, indicate, title · To what, where: title, country, unsuspected capacity, Merrie England

This is a sentence of «English Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, _to My Dear Little May_. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tales, title), 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	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 serve	nsubj
2	serve	serve	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 justify	mark
4	justify	justify	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 serve	xcomp
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 title	det
6	title	title	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 justify	obj
7	of	of	ADP	_	9 England	case
8	Merrie	Merrie	PROPN	Number=Sing	9 England	compound
9	England	England	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 title	nmod
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 used	punct
11	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	12 used	nsubj
12	used	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 title	acl:relcl
13	to	to	PART	_	15 given	mark
14	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	15 given	aux:pass
15	given	give	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	12 used	xcomp
16	to	to	ADP	_	18 country	case
17	this	this	DET	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	18 country	det
18	country	country	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 given	obl
19	of	of	ADP	_	20 ours	case
20	ours	our	PRON	Number=Plur Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	18 country	nmod
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 indicate	punct
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	23 indicate	cc
23	indicate	indicate	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 serve	conj
24	unsuspected	unsuspected	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 capacity	amod
25	capacity	capacity	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 indicate	obj
26	for	for	ADP	_	27 fun	case
27	fun	fun	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 capacity	nmod
28	and	and	CCONJ	_	29 humour	cc
29	humour	humour	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 fun	conj
30	among	among	ADP	_	33 classes	case
31	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 classes	det
32	unlettered	unlettered	ADJ	Degree=Pos	33 classes	amod
33	classes	class	NOUN	Number=Plur	23 indicate	obl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 serve	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	serve	present	tales = tale				tree rules
2	justify speech: other	to-infinitive	tales = tale not said here	the title of Merrie England			vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent title=Topic
3	use	past	the title of Merrie England				vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
4	give	to-infinitive · passive	the title of Merrie England not said here		this country of ours		vn give-13.1-1 «NP V PP.recipient»: to country=Recipient
5	indicate	present	tales = tale not said here	unsuspected capacity		for fun and humour; among the unlettered classes	vn indicate-78-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot capacity=Topic
6	title			Merrie England			nom title «communication transitive»: of=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: «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.

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