Tanglewood Tales, The Minotaur., part 3, sentence 1

The old king shed tears, and besought Theseus not to leave him desolate in his old age, more especially as he had but just begun to know the happiness of possessing a good and valiant son.

Who acts: old shed tears, Theseus, happiness · What happens: beseech, not leave, desolate, have, begin, know · To what, where: Theseus, old age, happiness, good son

This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minotaur., 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 (old shed tears, Theseus, happiness), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	5 tears	det
2	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 tears	amod
3	king	king	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 shed	compound
4	shed	shed	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 tears	compound
5	tears	tear	NOUN	Number=Plur	8 besought	nsubj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 besought	punct
7	and	and	CCONJ	_	8 besought	cc
8	besought	beseech	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
9	Theseus	Theseus	PROPN	Number=Sing	8 besought	obj
10	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	12 leave	advmod
11	to	to	PART	_	12 leave	mark
12	leave	leave	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 besought	advcl
13	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 leave	obj
14	desolate	desolate	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 leave	xcomp
15	in	in	ADP	_	18 age	case
16	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	18 age	nmod:poss
17	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 age	amod
18	age	age	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 desolate	obl
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 had	punct
20	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	21 especially	advmod
21	especially	especially	ADV	_	24 had	advmod
22	as	as	SCONJ	_	24 had	mark
23	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	24 had	nsubj
24	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 besought	conj
25	but	but	CCONJ	_	27 begun	cc
26	just	just	ADV	_	27 begun	advmod
27	begun	begin	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	24 had	xcomp
28	to	to	PART	_	29 know	mark
29	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	27 begun	xcomp
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 happiness	det
31	happiness	happiness	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 know	obj
32	of	of	SCONJ	_	33 possessing	mark
33	possessing	possess	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	31 happiness	acl
34	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	38 son	det
35	good	good	ADJ	Degree=Pos	38 son	amod
36	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 valiant	cc
37	valiant	valiant	ADJ	Degree=Pos	35 good	conj
38	son	son	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 possessing	obj
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 besought	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	beseech	past	the old shed tears	Theseus			tree rules
2	not leave	to-infinitive	the old shed tears not said here	Theseus			tree rules
3	desolate	infinitive	Theseus not said here		in Theseus's old age		tree rules
4	have	past	Theseus			especially property	tree rules
5	begin	participle	Theseus not said here				vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
6	know	to-infinitive	Theseus not said here	the happiness			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer happiness=Stimulus
7	possess	gerund	the happiness not said here	a good son			vn own-100.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot son=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/pg976/5/1/