Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 1, sentence 80

But scarcely had they made half a dozen steps from the edge of the cliff, when a bird came fluttering to meet them.

Who acts: inhabitants, bird · What happens: make, come, flutter, meet · To what, where: dozen steps, edge, steps

This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., 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 (inhabitants, bird), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	5 made	cc
2	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	_	5 made	advmod
3	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 made	aux
4	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 made	nsubj
5	made	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	half	half	DET	NumForm=Word NumType=Frac PronType=Ind	9 steps	det:predet
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 steps	det
8	dozen	dozen	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	9 steps	nummod
9	steps	step	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 made	obj
10	from	from	ADP	_	12 edge	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 edge	det
12	edge	edge	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 steps	nmod
13	of	of	ADP	_	15 cliff	case
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 cliff	det
15	cliff	cliff	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 edge	nmod
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 came	punct
17	when	when	SCONJ	_	20 came	mark
18	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	19 bird	det
19	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 came	nsubj
20	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 made	conj
21	fluttering	flutter	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	20 came	xcomp
22	to	to	PART	_	23 meet	mark
23	meet	meet	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 fluttering	xcomp
24	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 meet	obj
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 made	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	make	past	inhabitants = inhabitant	half dozen steps	the edge of the cliff	scarcely property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V PP»: agent=Asset step=Product from edge=Material
2	come	past	a bird				tree rules
3	flutter	gerund	a bird not said here				tree rules
4	meet	to-infinitive	a bird not said here	steps = step			vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Co-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: «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/pg976/15/80/