Gleanings from Chinese folklore, The Wild Goose and the Sparrow, sentence 20

How the little sparrow chattered and sputtered, shook his wings, and at last said, “In what way are you, with your long neck and short tail, better than I?

Who acts: little sparrow, you · What happens: chatter, sputter, shake, say, be · To what, where: wings, last · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, The Wild Goose and the Sparrow. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little sparrow, you), 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	How	how	ADV	PronType=Int	5 chattered	advmod
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 sparrow	det
3	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 sparrow	amod
4	sparrow	sparrow	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 chattered	nsubj
5	chattered	chatter	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 shook	advcl
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 sputtered	cc
7	sputtered	sputter	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 chattered	conj
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 shook	punct
9	shook	shake	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
10	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 wings	nmod:poss
11	wings	wing	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 shook	obj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 said	punct
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 said	cc
14	at	at	ADP	_	15 last	case
15	last	last	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 said	obl
16	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 shook	conj
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 what	punct
18	“	"	PUNCT	_	20 what	punct
19	In	in	ADP	_	20 what	case
20	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	16 said	ccomp
21	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 what	obl:unmarked
22	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	20 what	cop
23	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	20 what	nsubj
24	,	,	PUNCT	_	28 neck	punct
25	with	with	ADP	_	28 neck	case
26	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	28 neck	nmod:poss
27	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 neck	amod
28	neck	neck	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 said	parataxis
29	and	and	CCONJ	_	31 tail	cc
30	short	short	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 tail	amod
31	tail	tail	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 neck	conj
32	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 better	punct
33	better	good	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	28 neck	amod
34	than	than	ADP	_	35 I	case
35	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	33 better	obl
36	?	?	PUNCT	_	9 shook	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	chatter	past	the little sparrow				vn animal_sounds-38 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	sputter	past	the little sparrow not said here				vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	shake	past		sparrow's wings			vn shake-22.3-2 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent wing=Patient
4	say speech: ask	past			last	your long neck and short tail parataxis	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
5	is in a quote	present	you			way obl:unmarked	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: «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Project Gutenberg book 75089 (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/pg75089/8/20/

🌲 Gleanings from Chinese folklore, The Wild Goose and the Sparrow, sentence 20

The tree

Pragmatics

Gleanings from Chinese folklore, The Wild Goose and the Sparrow, sentence 20