Tanglewood Tales, The Dragon's Teeth., part 4, sentence 25

This was a strange thing to do; nor was it very easy, I should imagine, to dig out all those deep-rooted fangs from the dead dragon's jaws.

Who acts: This, I · What happens: be, do, imagine, dig out, root · To what, where: strange thing, rooted fangs, jaws

This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Dragon's Teeth., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, I), 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	This	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	5 thing	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 thing	cop
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	5 thing	det
4	strange	strange	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 thing	amod
5	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	to	to	PART	_	7 do	mark
7	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 thing	acl
8	;	;	PUNCT	_	13 easy	punct
9	nor	nor	CCONJ	Polarity=Neg	13 easy	cc
10	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 easy	cop
11	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 easy	expl
12	very	very	ADV	_	13 easy	advmod
13	easy	easy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 thing	parataxis
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 imagine	punct
15	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	17 imagine	nsubj
16	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	17 imagine	aux
17	imagine	imagine	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	13 easy	parataxis
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 dig	punct
19	to	to	PART	_	20 dig	mark
20	dig	dig	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 imagine	ccomp
21	out	out	ADP	_	20 dig	compound:prt
22	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	27 fangs	det:predet
23	those	that	DET	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	27 fangs	det
24	deep	deep	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 rooted	compound
25	-	-	PUNCT	_	24 deep	punct
26	rooted	root	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	27 fangs	amod
27	fangs	fang	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 dig	obj
28	from	from	ADP	_	33 jaws	case
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 dragon	det
30	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	31 dragon	amod
31	dragon	dragon	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 jaws	nmod:poss
32	's	's	PART	_	31 dragon	case
33	jaws	jaw	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 dig	obl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 thing	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is a	past	This	a strange thing			tree rules
2	do	to-infinitive					vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	is	past				easy property	tree rules
4	imagine	should	I				vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme
5	dig out	to-infinitive	I not said here	all rooted fangs	the dead dragon's jaws		vn create-26.4-1-1 «NP V NP PP.material»: agent=Agent fang=Result from jaw=Material
6	root	participle					vn other_cos-45.4 «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/pg976/13/25/