Tanglewood Tales, Circe's Palace., part 4, sentence 86
It was curious, in the midst of their distress, to observe them thrusting their noses into the mire, in quest of something to eat.
Who acts: swine, comrades, something · What happens: be, observe, thrust, eat, distress, quest · To what, where: midst, comrades, noses, mire
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 (swine, comrades, something), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 curious | nsubj |
| 2 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 curious | cop |
| 3 | curious | curious | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 7 midst | punct |
| 5 | in | in | ADP | _ | 7 midst | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 midst | det |
| 7 | midst | midst | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 curious | obl |
| 8 | of | of | ADP | _ | 10 distress | case |
| 9 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 10 distress | nmod:poss |
| 10 | distress | distress | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 midst | nmod |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 13 observe | punct |
| 12 | to | to | PART | _ | 13 observe | mark |
| 13 | observe | observe | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | 3 curious | parataxis |
| 14 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 observe | obj |
| 15 | thrusting | thrust | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 13 observe | advcl |
| 16 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 17 noses | nmod:poss |
| 17 | noses | nose | NOUN | Number=Plur | 15 thrusting | obj |
| 18 | into | into | ADP | _ | 20 mire | case |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 mire | det |
| 20 | mire | mire | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 thrusting | obl |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 quest | punct |
| 22 | in | in | ADP | _ | 23 quest | case |
| 23 | quest | quest | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 thrusting | obl |
| 24 | of | of | ADP | _ | 25 something | case |
| 25 | something | something | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Ind | 23 quest | nmod |
| 26 | to | to | PART | _ | 27 eat | mark |
| 27 | eat | eat | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 25 something | acl |
| 28 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 curious | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | swine | the midst of comrades's distress | curious property | tree rules | |||
| 2 | observe | to-infinitive | comrades = comrade | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent they=Topic | |||||
| 3 | thrust | gerund | comrades's noses | the mire | in quest of something | vn carry-11.4-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nose=Theme | |||
| 4 | eat | to-infinitive | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 5 | distress | comrades = comrade | nom distress «feeling transitive»: poss=agent | ||||||
| 6 | quest | something | nom quest «cognition intransitive»: of=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/pg976/18/86/