Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 2, sentence 8
It is a mere foolish waste of life, to spend it as we do, always wandering up and down, and never coming to any home at nightfall.
Who acts: heap, we · What happens: be, spend, do, wonder up, not come · To what, where: mere foolish waste, heap, nightfall
This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (heap, we), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 waste | nsubj |
| 2 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 6 waste | cop |
| 3 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 waste | det |
| 4 | mere | mere | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 waste | amod |
| 5 | foolish | foolish | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 waste | amod |
| 6 | waste | waste | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 7 | of | of | ADP | _ | 8 life | case |
| 8 | life | life | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 waste | nmod |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 spend | punct |
| 10 | to | to | PART | _ | 11 spend | mark |
| 11 | spend | spend | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 6 waste | parataxis |
| 12 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 spend | obj |
| 13 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 15 do | mark |
| 14 | we | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 15 do | nsubj |
| 15 | do | do | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 11 spend | advcl |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 wandering | punct |
| 17 | always | always | ADV | PronType=Tot | 18 wandering | advmod |
| 18 | wandering | wonder | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 11 spend | advcl |
| 19 | up | up | ADP | _ | 18 wandering | compound:prt |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 21 down | cc |
| 21 | down | down | ADV | _ | 18 wandering | conj |
| 22 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 25 coming | punct |
| 23 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 25 coming | cc |
| 24 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 25 coming | advmod |
| 25 | coming | come | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 18 wandering | conj |
| 26 | to | to | ADP | _ | 28 home | case |
| 27 | any | any | DET | PronType=Ind | 28 home | det |
| 28 | home | home | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 coming | obl |
| 29 | at | at | ADP | _ | 30 nightfall | case |
| 30 | nightfall | nightfall | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 coming | obl |
| 31 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 waste | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | present | heap | a mere foolish waste | of life | tree rules | |||
| 2 | spend | to-infinitive | heap | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Asset | |||||
| 3 | do | present | we | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 4 | wonder up speech: ask | gerund | always property | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer | |||||
| 5 | not come | gerund | nightfall | to any home | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to home=Initial_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: «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/pg976/11/8/