Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 4, sentence 1

While he was speaking, Quicksilver seemed to be in search of something; he went stooping along the ground, and soon laid his hand on a little plant with a snow-white flower, which he plucked and smelt of.

Who acts: he, Quicksilver · What happens: speak, seem, be, go, stoop, lay · To what, where: search, ground, hand, little plant, white flower · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Circe's Palace., 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 (he, Quicksilver), 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	While	while	SCONJ	_	4 speaking	mark
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	4 speaking	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 speaking	aux
4	speaking	speak	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	7 seemed	advcl
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 speaking	punct
6	Quicksilver	quicksilver	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 seemed	nsubj
7	seemed	seem	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
8	to	to	PART	_	11 search	mark
9	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	11 search	cop
10	in	in	ADP	_	11 search	case
11	search	search	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 seemed	xcomp
12	of	of	ADP	_	13 something	case
13	something	something	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	11 search	nmod
14	;	;	PUNCT	_	16 went	punct
15	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 went	nsubj
16	went	go	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 seemed	parataxis
17	stooping	stoop	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	16 went	xcomp
18	along	along	ADP	_	20 ground	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 ground	det
20	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 stooping	obl
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 laid	punct
22	and	and	CCONJ	_	24 laid	cc
23	soon	soon	ADV	Degree=Pos	24 laid	advmod
24	laid	lay	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 went	conj
25	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	26 hand	nmod:poss
26	hand	hand	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 laid	obj
27	on	on	ADP	_	30 plant	case
28	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	30 plant	det
29	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	30 plant	amod
30	plant	plant	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 laid	obl
31	with	with	ADP	_	36 flower	case
32	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	36 flower	det
33	snow	snow	NOUN	Number=Sing	35 white	obl
34	-	-	PUNCT	_	33 snow	punct
35	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	36 flower	amod
36	flower	flower	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 plant	nmod
37	,	,	PUNCT	_	40 plucked	punct
38	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	40 plucked	obj
39	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	40 plucked	nsubj
40	plucked	pluck	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	36 flower	acl:relcl
41	and	and	CCONJ	_	42 smelt	cc
42	smelt	smelt	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 plucked	obj
43	of	of	ADP	_	42 smelt	case
44	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 seemed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	speak speech: other	past · progressive	he				vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	seem	past	Quicksilver				vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme
3	is	to-infinitive	Quicksilver not said here		search	of something	tree rules
4	go	past	Quicksilver				vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
5	stoop	gerund	Quicksilver not said here		the ground		vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent along ground=Location
6	lay	past	Quicksilver not said here	Quicksilver's hand	a little plant with a white flower	soon property	vn put_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent hand=Theme on plant=Destination
7	pluck	past	Quicksilver	a white flower			vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent which=Beneficiary smelt=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/pg976/18/1/