Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 3, sentence 53

If they had any human reason left, it was just enough to keep them wondering when they should be slaughtered, and what quality of bacon they should make.

Who acts: creatures, reason, quality · What happens: have, leave, be, wonder, slaughter, make · To what, where: human reason, creatures · 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 (creatures, reason, quality), 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	If	if	SCONJ	_	3 had	mark
2	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 had	nsubj
3	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 keep	advcl
4	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	6 reason	det
5	human	human	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 reason	amod
6	reason	reason	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 had	obj
7	left	leave	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 reason	acl
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 had	punct
9	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 keep	nsubj
10	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 keep	cop
11	just	just	ADV	_	12 enough	advmod
12	enough	enough	ADV	_	14 keep	advmod
13	to	to	PART	_	14 keep	mark
14	keep	keep	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
15	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 keep	obj
16	wondering	wonder	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	14 keep	xcomp
17	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	21 slaughtered	advmod
18	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 slaughtered	nsubj:pass
19	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	21 slaughtered	aux
20	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	21 slaughtered	aux:pass
21	slaughtered	slaughter	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	16 wondering	ccomp
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 make	punct
23	and	and	CCONJ	_	30 make	cc
24	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	30 make	obj
25	quality	quality	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 make	nsubj
26	of	of	ADP	_	27 bacon	case
27	bacon	bacon	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 quality	nmod
28	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 make	nsubj
29	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	30 make	aux
30	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	14 keep	conj
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	14 keep	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	have a condition, not said to happen	past	creatures = creature	any human reason		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reason=Patient
2	leave	participle		any human reason not said here		vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	is	past	reason		enough, keep property	tree rules
4	wonder speech: ask	gerund	reason not said here			vn care-88.1-1 «NP V what S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
5	slaughter	should · passive		creatures = creature		vn murder-42.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient
6	make	should	quality of bacon			vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset what=Product

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/pg976/17/53/