Tanglewood Tales, The Golden Fleece., part 1, sentence 53

Saying this, the old woman poked with her staff in the river, as if to find the safest place in its rocky bed where she might make the first step.

Who acts: mother · What happens: say, poke, find, make · To what, where: this, old woman, river, safest place, rocky bed, first step · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece., 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 (mother), 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	Saying	say	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
2	this	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	1 Saying	obj
3	,	,	PUNCT	_	6 woman	punct
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 woman	det
5	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 woman	amod
6	woman	woman	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Saying	obl
7	poked	poke	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 woman	acl
8	with	with	ADP	_	10 staff	case
9	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	10 staff	nmod:poss
10	staff	staff	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 poked	obl
11	in	in	ADP	_	13 river	case
12	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 river	det
13	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 poked	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 find	punct
15	as	as	SCONJ	_	18 find	mark
16	if	if	SCONJ	_	18 find	mark
17	to	to	PART	_	18 find	mark
18	find	find	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	1 Saying	advcl
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 place	det
20	safest	safe	ADJ	Degree=Sup	21 place	amod
21	place	place	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 find	obj
22	in	in	ADP	_	25 bed	case
23	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	25 bed	nmod:poss
24	rocky	rocky	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 bed	amod
25	bed	bed	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 find	obl
26	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	29 make	advmod
27	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 make	nsubj
28	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	29 make	aux
29	make	make	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	25 bed	acl:relcl
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	32 step	det
31	first	first	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	32 step	amod
32	step	step	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 make	obj
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	1 Saying	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	say speech: assert	gerund		this		the old woman obl	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent this=Topic
2	poke	participle		the old woman not said here	the river	with mother's staff	vn poke-19-1-1-1 «NP V PP.theme PP.instrument»: agent=Agent with staff=Instrument
3	find	to-infinitive		the safest place	place's rocky bed		vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent place=Topic
4	make	might	mother	the first step			vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent step=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/pg976/25/53/