Celtic Fairy Tales, The Battle of the Birds, sentence 2
There was once a farmer who was seeking a servant, and the wren met him and said: "What are you seeking?"
Who acts: farmer, wren, you · What happens: be, seek, meet, say · To what, where: servant, farmer · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Celtic Fairy Tales» by Joseph Jacobs, The Battle of the Birds. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (farmer, wren, you), 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 | There | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 2 was | expl |
| 2 | was | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 said | advcl |
| 3 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 2 was | advmod |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 farmer | det |
| 5 | farmer | farmer | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 was | nsubj |
| 6 | who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 8 seeking | nsubj |
| 7 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 8 seeking | aux |
| 8 | seeking | seek | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 5 farmer | acl:relcl |
| 9 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 10 servant | det |
| 10 | servant | servant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 seeking | obj |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 met | punct |
| 12 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 15 met | cc |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 wren | det |
| 14 | wren | wren | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 met | nsubj |
| 15 | met | meet | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 said | advcl |
| 16 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 met | obj |
| 17 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 said | cc |
| 18 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 19 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 24 seeking | punct |
| 20 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 24 seeking | punct |
| 21 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 24 seeking | obj |
| 22 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 24 seeking | aux |
| 23 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 24 seeking | nsubj |
| 24 | seeking | seek | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 18 said | ccomp |
| 25 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 24 seeking | punct |
| 26 | " | " | PUNCT | _ | 24 seeking | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | be | past | a farmer | there | once property | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||
| 2 | seek | past · progressive | a farmer | a servant | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent servant=Theme | ||||
| 3 | meet | past | the wren | farmer | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Co-Agent | ||||
| 4 | say speech: ask | past | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | ||||||
| 5 | seek in a quote | present · progressive | you | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Theme |
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/pg7885/31/2/