Celtic Fairy Tales, The Story of Deirdre, sentence 65

Many a youth was there who had a lithe leaping and lissom step when they started whose step was faint, failing, and faltering when they reached the bothy on account of the length of the way and roughness of the road.

Who acts: Many youth, leaping, step · What happens: be, have, start, fail, falter, reach · To what, where: lithe leaping, bothy, account, length

This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Story of Deirdre. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Many youth, leaping, step), 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	Many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 youth	amod
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 youth	det
3	youth	youth	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 there	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 there	cop
5	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	7 had	advmod
6	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	7 had	nsubj
7	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 leaping	det
9	lithe	lithe	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 leaping	amod
10	leaping	leaping	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 had	obj
11	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 step	cc
12	lissom	lissom	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 step	amod
13	step	step	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 leaping	conj
14	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	16 started	advmod
15	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 started	nsubj
16	started	start	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 had	advcl
17	whose	whose	PRON	Poss=Yes PronType=Rel	18 step	nmod:poss
18	step	step	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 faint	nsubj
19	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 faint	cop
20	faint	faint	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 started	ccomp
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 failing	punct
22	failing	fail	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	16 started	advcl
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	25 faltering	punct
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 faltering	cc
25	faltering	falter	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	22 failing	conj
26	when	when	SCONJ	_	28 reached	mark
27	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 reached	nsubj
28	reached	reach	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	25 faltering	advcl
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 bothy	det
30	bothy	bothy	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 reached	obj
31	on	on	ADP	_	32 account	case
32	account	account	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 reached	obl
33	of	of	ADP	_	35 length	case
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 length	det
35	length	length	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 account	nmod
36	of	of	ADP	_	38 way	case
37	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	38 way	det
38	way	way	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 length	nmod
39	and	and	CCONJ	_	40 roughness	cc
40	roughness	roughness	NOUN	Number=Sing	38 way	conj
41	of	of	ADP	_	43 road	case
42	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	43 road	det
43	road	road	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 roughness	nmod
44	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is	past	a Many youth			there property	tree rules
2	have	past		a lithe leaping and lissom step			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leaping=Patient
3	start	past	leaping				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality
4	is	past	step			faint property	tree rules
5	fail	gerund	leaping not said here				vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
6	falter	gerund	leaping not said here				vn modes_of_being_with_motion-47.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme
7	reach	past	leaping	the bothy	account of the length of the way and roughness of the road		vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent bothy=Theme
8	account			the length of the way and roughness of the road			nom account «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: «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, Project Gutenberg book 7885 (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/pg7885/13/65/