Legends of the conquest of Spain, Story of the Marvellous and Portentous Tower., sentence 37
The king paused at sight of this appalling figure; for whether it were a living being, or a statue of magic artifice, he could not tell.
Who acts: king, figure · What happens: pause, appal, be, not tell, sight · To what, where: sight, magic artifice, appalling figure · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Story of the Marvellous and Portentous Tower.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, figure), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 king | det |
| 2 | king | king | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 paused | nsubj |
| 3 | paused | pause | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | at | at | ADP | _ | 5 sight | case |
| 5 | sight | sight | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 paused | obl |
| 6 | of | of | ADP | _ | 9 figure | case |
| 7 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 9 figure | det |
| 8 | appalling | appal | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 9 figure | amod |
| 9 | figure | figure | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 sight | nmod |
| 10 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 3 paused | punct |
| 11 | for | for | ADP | _ | 16 living | case |
| 12 | whether | whether | SCONJ | _ | 16 living | mark |
| 13 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 living | nsubj |
| 14 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 16 living | cop |
| 15 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 living | det |
| 16 | living | living | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 paused | obl |
| 17 | being | be | AUX | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 16 living | acl |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 statue | punct |
| 19 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 21 statue | cc |
| 20 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 21 statue | det |
| 21 | statue | statue | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 paused | parataxis |
| 22 | of | of | ADP | _ | 24 artifice | case |
| 23 | magic | magic | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 24 artifice | amod |
| 24 | artifice | artifice | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 statue | nmod |
| 25 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 artifice | punct |
| 26 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 29 tell | nsubj |
| 27 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 29 tell | aux |
| 28 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 29 tell | advmod |
| 29 | tell | tell | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 24 artifice | acl:relcl |
| 30 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 paused | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | pause | past | the king | sight of this appalling figure | a statue of magic artifice parataxis | vn linger-53.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at sight=Location | |||
| 2 | appal | gerund | tree rules | ||||||
| 3 | is | past | figure | for a living | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | not tell speech: assert | could | King | magic artifice not said here | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent artifice=Recipient | ||||
| 5 | sight | this appalling figure | nom sight «cognition 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: «Legends of the conquest of Spain» by Washington Irving, Project Gutenberg book 77685 (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/pg77685/8/37/