Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 1, sentence 66
And there stood Cadmus, Phoenix, and Cilix, gazing at this sad spectacle, through their tears, until they could no longer distinguish the bull's snowy head from the white-capped billows that seemed to boil up out of the sea's depths around him.
Who acts: Cadmus, capped billows · What happens: stand, gaze, distinguish, cap, seem, boil up · To what, where: Cadmus, snowy head, depths
This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., 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 (Cadmus, capped billows), 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 | And | and | CCONJ | _ | 3 stood | cc |
| 2 | there | there | ADV | PronType=Dem | 3 stood | advmod |
| 3 | stood | stand | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | Cadmus | Cadmus | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 stood | obj |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 6 Phoenix | punct |
| 6 | Phoenix | Phoenix | PROPN | Number=Sing | 4 Cadmus | nmod:unmarked |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 Cilix | punct |
| 8 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 9 Cilix | cc |
| 9 | Cilix | Cilix | PROPN | Number=Sing | 4 Cadmus | conj |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 gazing | punct |
| 11 | gazing | gaze | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 3 stood | advcl |
| 12 | at | at | ADP | _ | 15 spectacle | case |
| 13 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 15 spectacle | det |
| 14 | sad | sad | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 15 spectacle | amod |
| 15 | spectacle | spectacle | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 gazing | obl |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 tears | punct |
| 17 | through | through | ADP | _ | 19 tears | case |
| 18 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 19 tears | nmod:poss |
| 19 | tears | tear | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 gazing | obl |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 26 distinguish | punct |
| 21 | until | until | SCONJ | _ | 26 distinguish | mark |
| 22 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 26 distinguish | nsubj |
| 23 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 26 distinguish | aux |
| 24 | no | no | ADV | _ | 25 longer | advmod |
| 25 | longer | long | ADV | Degree=Cmp | 26 distinguish | advmod |
| 26 | distinguish | distinguish | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 stood | conj |
| 27 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 28 bull | det |
| 28 | bull | bull | NOUN | Number=Sing | 31 head | nmod:poss |
| 29 | 's | 's | PART | _ | 28 bull | case |
| 30 | snowy | snowy | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 31 head | amod |
| 31 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 26 distinguish | obj |
| 32 | from | from | ADP | _ | 37 billows | case |
| 33 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 37 billows | det |
| 34 | white | white | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 36 capped | compound |
| 35 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 34 white | punct |
| 36 | capped | cap | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 37 billows | amod |
| 37 | billows | billow | NOUN | Number=Plur | 26 distinguish | obl |
| 38 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 39 seemed | nsubj |
| 39 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 37 billows | acl:relcl |
| 40 | to | to | PART | _ | 41 boil | mark |
| 41 | boil | boil | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 39 seemed | xcomp |
| 42 | up | up | ADP | _ | 41 boil | compound:prt |
| 43 | out | out | ADP | _ | 48 depths | case |
| 44 | of | of | ADP | _ | 48 depths | case |
| 45 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 46 sea | det |
| 46 | sea | sea | NOUN | Number=Sing | 48 depths | nmod:poss |
| 47 | 's | 's | PART | _ | 46 sea | case |
| 48 | depths | depth | NOUN | Number=Plur | 41 boil | obl |
| 49 | around | around | ADP | _ | 50 him | case |
| 50 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 48 depths | nmod |
| 51 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 stood | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | stand | past | Cadmus Phoenix and Cilix | there | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer cadmus=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | gaze | gerund | through Cadmus's tears; at this sad spectacle | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at spectacle=Theme | |||||
| 3 | distinguish | could | Cadmus | the bull's snowy head | from the capped billows; long property | vn distinguish-23.5-1 «NP V NP.theme PP.co-theme»: agent=Agent head=Theme from billow=Co-Theme | |||
| 4 | cap | participle | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 5 | seem | past | the capped billows | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute | |||||
| 6 | boil up | to-infinitive | the capped billows not said here | the sea's depths around bull | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=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: «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Project Gutenberg book 976 (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/pg976/10/66/