Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 3, sentence 23

Whatever little fault they might find with the dishes, they sat at dinner a prodigiously long while; and it would really have made you ashamed to see how they swilled down the liquor and gobbled up the food.

Who acts: little fault, sorts, fault · What happens: find, sit, make, see, swill down, gobble up · To what, where: dinner, fault, liquor, food · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., 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 (little fault, sorts, fault), 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	Whatever	whatever	PRON	PronType=Rel	3 fault	det:predet
2	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 fault	amod
3	fault	fault	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 find	nsubj
4	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 find	nsubj
5	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	6 find	aux
6	find	find	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
7	with	with	ADP	_	9 dishes	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 dishes	det
9	dishes	dish	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 find	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 sat	punct
11	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 sat	nsubj
12	sat	sit	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 find	parataxis
13	at	at	ADP	_	14 dinner	case
14	dinner	dinner	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 sat	obl
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	17 long	det
16	prodigiously	prodigiously	ADV	_	17 long	advmod
17	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 sat	advcl
18	while	while	SCONJ	_	17 long	obl
19	;	;	PUNCT	_	25 made	punct
20	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 made	cc
21	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	25 made	nsubj:pass
22	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	25 made	aux
23	really	really	ADV	_	25 made	advmod
24	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	25 made	aux
25	made	make	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 find	ccomp
26	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	27 ashamed	nsubj
27	ashamed	ashamed	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 made	xcomp
28	to	to	PART	_	29 see	mark
29	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	27 ashamed	xcomp
30	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	32 swilled	advmod
31	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 swilled	nsubj
32	swilled	swill	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	29 see	ccomp
33	down	down	ADP	_	32 swilled	compound:prt
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 liquor	det
35	liquor	liquor	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 swilled	obj
36	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 gobbled	cc
37	gobbled	gobble	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	32 swilled	conj
38	up	up	ADP	_	37 gobbled	compound:prt
39	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	40 food	det
40	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 gobbled	obj
41	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 find	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	find	might	whatever little fault			with the dishes	vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
2	sit	past	sorts = sort		dinner		vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at dinner=Location
3	make	would · perfect · passive		fault		ashamed property	vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product
4	see	to-infinitive	fault not said here				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
5	swill down	past	sorts = sort	the liquor			vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent liquor=Patient
6	gobble up	past	sorts = sort not said here	the food			vn animal_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent food=Theme

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/pg976/17/23/