The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 3, sentence 142

The little ducks were swimming about in the pond, looking just like a lot of yellow canaries, and their mother, who was pure white with real red legs, was trying to teach them how to stand on their heads in the water.

Who acts: little ducks, mother · What happens: swim, look, be, try, teach, stand · To what, where: ducks, heads

This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little ducks, mother), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 ducks	det
2	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 ducks	amod
3	ducks	duck	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 swimming	nsubj
4	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 swimming	aux
5	swimming	swim	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
6	about	about	ADP	_	9 pond	case
7	in	in	ADP	_	9 pond	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 pond	det
9	pond	pond	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 swimming	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 looking	punct
11	looking	look	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 swimming	conj
12	just	just	ADV	_	15 lot	advmod
13	like	like	ADP	_	15 lot	case
14	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	15 lot	det
15	lot	lot	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 looking	obl
16	of	of	ADP	_	18 canaries	case
17	yellow	yellow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 canaries	amod
18	canaries	canary	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 lot	nmod
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	34 trying	punct
20	and	and	CCONJ	_	34 trying	cc
21	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	22 mother	nmod:poss
22	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 trying	nsubj
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 white	punct
24	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	27 white	nsubj
25	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 white	cop
26	pure	pure	ADJ	Degree=Pos	27 white	amod
27	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 mother	amod
28	with	with	ADP	_	31 legs	case
29	real	real	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 legs	amod
30	red	red	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 legs	amod
31	legs	leg	NOUN	Number=Plur	27 white	obl
32	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 mother	punct
33	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	34 trying	aux
34	trying	try	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 swimming	conj
35	to	to	PART	_	36 teach	mark
36	teach	teach	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	34 trying	xcomp
37	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	36 teach	iobj
38	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	40 stand	advmod
39	to	to	PART	_	40 stand	mark
40	stand	stand	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	36 teach	xcomp
41	on	on	ADP	_	43 heads	case
42	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	43 heads	nmod:poss
43	heads	head	NOUN	Number=Plur	40 stand	obl
44	in	in	ADP	_	46 water	case
45	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	46 water	det
46	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 stand	obl
47	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 swimming	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	swim	past · progressive	the little ducks			about the pond	vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme about pond=Trajectory
2	look	gerund	the little ducks not said here			like a lot of yellow canaries	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus
3	is	past	ducks's mother			with real red legs; white property	tree rules
4	try	past · progressive	ducks's mother				vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
5	teach speech: other not said to happen	to-infinitive	ducks's mother not said here	ducks = duck			vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic
6	stand	to-infinitive	ducks's mother not said here		ducks's heads	in the water	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on head=Location

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/pg902/3/142/