Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 3, sentence 90
They could not possibly help following her, though all the time they fancied themselves doing it of their own accord.
Who acts: miles · What happens: not help, follow, fancy, do · To what, where: cow, miles, much
This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., 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 (miles), 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 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 help | nsubj |
| 2 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 5 help | aux |
| 3 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 5 help | advmod |
| 4 | possibly | possibly | ADV | _ | 5 help | advmod |
| 5 | help | help | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 6 | following | follow | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 5 help | obj |
| 7 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 following | obj |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 fancied | punct |
| 9 | though | though | SCONJ | _ | 14 fancied | mark |
| 10 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 12 time | det:predet |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 time | det |
| 12 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 fancied | obl:unmarked |
| 13 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 fancied | nsubj |
| 14 | fancied | fancy | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 help | conj |
| 15 | themselves | themselves | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 14 fancied | obj |
| 16 | doing | do | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 14 fancied | advcl |
| 17 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 doing | obj |
| 18 | of | of | ADP | _ | 21 accord | case |
| 19 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 21 accord | nmod:poss |
| 20 | own | own | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 21 accord | amod |
| 21 | accord | accord | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 doing | obl |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 help | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not help | could | miles = mile | possibly property | vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | follow | gerund | cow | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme | |||||
| 3 | fancy | past | miles = mile | miles = mile | time | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer themselves=Stimulus | |||
| 4 | do | gerund | miles = mile not said here | much | of miles's own accord | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |
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/pg976/12/90/