The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age, Opening, part 9, sentence 26
Then spake King Bove with countenance like night: ‘Of all dread shapes that traverse earth or sea, Or pierce the soil, or urge through heaven their flight, Say, which abhorrest thou most?’
Who acts: you, dread shapes, flight · What happens: speak, traverse, pierce, urge, abhor · To what, where: King, earth, soil, thou, heaven · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age» by Aubrey De Vere, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, dread shapes, flight), 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 | Then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 2 spake | advmod |
| 2 | spake | speak | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | King | King | PROPN | Number=Sing | 2 spake | obj |
| 4 | Bove | Bove | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 King | flat |
| 5 | with | with | ADP | _ | 6 countenance | case |
| 6 | countenance | countenance | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 spake | obl |
| 7 | like | like | ADP | _ | 8 night | case |
| 8 | night | night | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 countenance | nmod |
| 9 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 10 ‘ | punct |
| 10 | ‘ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 2 spake | punct |
| 11 | Of | of | ADP | _ | 14 shapes | case |
| 12 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 14 shapes | det |
| 13 | dread | dread | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 shapes | amod |
| 14 | shapes | shape | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 ‘ | obl |
| 15 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 16 traverse | nsubj |
| 16 | traverse | traverse | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 14 shapes | acl:relcl |
| 17 | earth | earth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 traverse | obj |
| 18 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 19 sea | cc |
| 19 | sea | sea | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 earth | conj |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 pierce | punct |
| 21 | Or | or | CCONJ | _ | 22 pierce | cc |
| 22 | pierce | pierce | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 16 traverse | conj |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 soil | det |
| 24 | soil | soil | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 pierce | obj |
| 25 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 27 urge | punct |
| 26 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 27 urge | cc |
| 27 | urge | urge | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 22 pierce | conj |
| 28 | through | through | ADP | _ | 29 heaven | case |
| 29 | heaven | heaven | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 abhorrest | obl |
| 30 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 31 flight | nmod:poss |
| 31 | flight | flight | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 abhorrest | nsubj |
| 32 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 33 Say | punct |
| 33 | Say | Say | PROPN | Number=Sing | 31 flight | appos |
| 34 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 36 abhorrest | punct |
| 35 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 36 abhorrest | nsubj |
| 36 | abhorrest | abhor | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Style=Arch Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 27 urge | conj |
| 37 | thou | thou | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=2 PronType=Prs Style=Arch | 36 abhorrest | obj |
| 38 | most | most | ADV | Degree=Sup | 36 abhorrest | advmod |
| 39 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 2 spake | punct |
| 40 | ’ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 2 spake | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | speak speech: other | imperative | you not said here | King | then | with countenance like night; all dread shapes obl | tree rules | ||
| 2 | traverse | present | all dread shapes | earth or sea | vn contiguous_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme earth=Co-Theme | ||||
| 3 | pierce | infinitive | all dread shapes not said here | the soil | vn poke-19-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent soil=Patient | ||||
| 4 | urge | infinitive | all dread shapes not said here | vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 5 | abhor | present | earth's flight | thou | heaven | which nsubj | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thou=Stimulus |
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 foray of Queen Meave, and other legends of Ireland's heroic age» by Aubrey De Vere, Project Gutenberg book 78491 (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/pg78491/9/26/