The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 1, sentence 52

“What is the use of a statue if it cannot keep the rain off?” he said; “I must look for a good chimney-pot,” and he determined to fly away.

Who acts: drop, cloud · What happens: be, not keep off, say, look, determine, fly away · To what, where: use, rain · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (drop, cloud), 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	“	"	PUNCT	_	5 use	punct
2	What	what	PRON	PronType=Int	5 use	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	5 use	cop
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 use	det
5	use	use	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 said	ccomp
6	of	of	ADP	_	8 statue	case
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 statue	det
8	statue	statue	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 use	nmod
9	if	if	SCONJ	_	13 keep	mark
10	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 keep	nsubj
11	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	13 keep	aux
12	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	13 keep	advmod
13	keep	keep	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 use	advcl
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 rain	det
15	rain	rain	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 keep	obj
16	off	off	ADP	_	13 keep	compound:prt
17	?	?	PUNCT	_	5 use	punct
18	”	"	PUNCT	_	5 use	punct
19	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 said	nsubj
20	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
21	;	;	PUNCT	_	25 look	punct
22	“	"	PUNCT	_	25 look	punct
23	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	25 look	nsubj
24	must	must	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	25 look	aux
25	look	look	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	20 said	ccomp
26	for	for	ADP	_	31 pot	case
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	31 pot	det
28	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 pot	amod
29	chimney	chimney	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 pot	compound
30	-	-	PUNCT	_	29 chimney	punct
31	pot	pot	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 look	obl
32	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 pot	punct
33	”	"	PUNCT	_	25 look	punct
34	and	and	CCONJ	_	36 determined	cc
35	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	36 determined	nsubj
36	determined	determine	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 said	conj
37	to	to	PART	_	38 fly	mark
38	fly	fly	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	36 determined	xcomp
39	away	away	ADV	_	38 fly	advmod
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	20 said	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is a in a quote	present		the use	of a statue	tree rules
2	not keep off a condition, not said to happen, in a quote	can	drop	the rain		vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rain=Theme
3	say speech: ask	past	cloud			vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	look in a quote	must	cloud		for a good chimney pot	vn rummage-35.5 «NP V PP.location PP.theme»: agent=Agent for pot=Theme
5	determine	past	cloud			vn discover-84 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
6	fly away	to-infinitive	cloud not said here		away property	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=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: «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Project Gutenberg book 902 (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/pg902/1/52/