The Happy Prince, and Other Tales, Opening, part 6, sentence 16

He spoke with a very slow, distinct voice, as if he was dictating his memoirs, and always looked over the shoulder of the person to whom he was talking.

Who acts: dead · What happens: speak, dictate, look, talk · To what, where: memoirs · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The Happy Prince, and Other Tales» by Oscar Wilde, Opening, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dead), 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	He	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 spoke	nsubj
2	spoke	speak	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	with	with	ADP	_	9 voice	case
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 voice	det
5	very	very	ADV	_	6 slow	advmod
6	slow	slow	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 voice	amod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 slow	punct
8	distinct	distinct	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 voice	amod
9	voice	voice	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 spoke	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 dictating	punct
11	as	as	SCONJ	_	15 dictating	mark
12	if	if	SCONJ	_	15 dictating	mark
13	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 dictating	nsubj
14	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 dictating	aux
15	dictating	dictate	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	2 spoke	advcl
16	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	17 memoirs	nmod:poss
17	memoirs	memoir	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 dictating	obj
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 looked	punct
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 looked	cc
20	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	21 looked	advmod
21	looked	look	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 spoke	conj
22	over	over	ADP	_	24 shoulder	case
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 shoulder	det
24	shoulder	shoulder	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 looked	obl
25	of	of	ADP	_	27 person	case
26	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	27 person	det
27	person	person	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 shoulder	nmod
28	to	to	ADP	_	29 whom	case
29	whom	whom	PRON	PronType=Rel	27 person	nmod
30	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 talking	nsubj
31	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	32 talking	aux
32	talking	talk	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	29 whom	acl:relcl
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 spoke	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	speak speech: other	past	dead		with a slow distinct voice	vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with voice=Co-Agent
2	dictate speech: other	past · progressive	dead	dead's memoirs		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent memoir=Topic
3	look	past	dead not said here		over the shoulder of the person to the shoulder of the person to the shoulder; always property	vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent over shoulder=Theme
4	talk	past · progressive	dead			vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent

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/pg902/6/16/