Tanglewood Tales, The Minotaur., part 4, sentence 4

It was at some distance, however, and he really could not tell whether it sounded most like a bull's roar or a man's harsh voice.

Who acts: breath, Theseus, bull · What happens: be, not tell, sound, roar · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Minotaur., 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 (breath, Theseus, bull), 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	5 distance	nsubj
2	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 distance	cop
3	at	at	ADP	_	5 distance	case
4	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	5 distance	det
5	distance	distance	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 tell	punct
7	however	however	ADV	_	14 tell	advmod
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 tell	punct
9	and	and	CCONJ	_	14 tell	cc
10	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 tell	nsubj
11	really	really	ADV	_	14 tell	advmod
12	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	14 tell	aux
13	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	14 tell	advmod
14	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 distance	parataxis
15	whether	whether	SCONJ	_	17 sounded	mark
16	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 sounded	nsubj
17	sounded	sound	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 tell	ccomp
18	most	most	ADV	Degree=Sup	17 sounded	advmod
19	like	like	ADP	_	23 roar	case
20	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	21 bull	det
21	bull	bull	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 roar	nmod:poss
22	's	's	PART	_	21 bull	case
23	roar	roar	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 sounded	obl
24	or	or	CCONJ	_	29 voice	cc
25	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	26 man	det
26	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 voice	nmod:poss
27	's	's	PART	_	26 man	case
28	harsh	harsh	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 voice	amod
29	voice	voice	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 roar	conj
30	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 distance	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	is	past	breath	at some distance	tree rules
2	not tell speech: assert	could	Theseus	however property	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	sound	past	breath	like a bull's roar or a man's harsh voice	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus
4	roar		a bull		nom roar «event intransitive»: poss=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/pg976/6/4/