Tanglewood Tales, The Minotaur., part 3, sentence 49

And he whirled his club aloft more threateningly than ever, as if he were about to smite them with a thunderstroke right amidships, because Athens, so little while ago, had been at war with Crete.

Who acts: errand · What happens: whirl, be, smite · To what, where: club, men, war

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 (errand), 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	And	and	CCONJ	_	3 whirled	cc
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 whirled	nsubj
3	whirled	whirl	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	5 club	nmod:poss
5	club	club	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 whirled	obj
6	aloft	aloft	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 more	amod
7	more	more	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	3 whirled	obj
8	threateningly	threateningly	ADV	_	7 more	advmod
9	than	than	ADP	_	10 ever	case
10	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	8 threateningly	obl
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 about	punct
12	as	as	SCONJ	_	16 about	mark
13	if	if	SCONJ	_	16 about	mark
14	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 about	nsubj
15	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 about	cop
16	about	about	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 whirled	parataxis
17	to	to	PART	_	18 smite	mark
18	smite	smite	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 about	xcomp
19	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	18 smite	obj
20	with	with	ADP	_	24 amidships	case
21	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	22 thunderstroke	det
22	thunderstroke	thunderstroke	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 amidships	nsubj
23	right	right	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 amidships	amod
24	amidships	amidship	NOUN	Number=Plur	18 smite	obl
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 Athens	punct
26	because	because	ADP	ExtPos=ADP	27 Athens	case
27	Athens	Athens	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 whirled	obl
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 little	punct
29	so	so	ADV	_	30 little	advmod
30	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	3 whirled	conj
31	while	while	SCONJ	_	32 ago	mark
32	ago	ago	ADV	_	30 little	advcl
33	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 war	punct
34	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	37 war	aux
35	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	37 war	cop
36	at	at	ADP	_	37 war	case
37	war	war	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 whirled	obl
38	with	with	ADP	_	39 Crete	case
39	Crete	Crete	PROPN	Number=Sing	37 war	nmod
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 whirled	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	whirl	past	errand	errand's club		because Athens	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP ADJ.result»: agent=Agent club=Theme more=Result
2	is a condition, not said to happen	past	errand			about property	tree rules
3	smite	to-infinitive	errand not said here	men = man		with right amidships	vn hit-18.1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent they=Patient with amidship=Instrument
4	is	past · perfect			war	with Crete	tree rules

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/pg976/5/49/