Just so stories, How the Alphabet Was Made, sentence 105

Taffy, dear, I’ve a notion that your Daddy’s daughter has hit upon the finest thing that there ever was since the Tribe of Tegumai took to using shark’s teeth instead of flints for their spear-heads.

Who acts: Taffy, daughter, Tribe · What happens: have, hit, take, use · To what, where: notion, finest thing, teeth

This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the Alphabet Was Made. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Taffy, daughter, Tribe), 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	Taffy	Taffy	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 ’ve	nsubj
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 dear	punct
3	dear	dear	ADJ	Degree=Pos	1 Taffy	parataxis
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Taffy	punct
5	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	6 ’ve	nsubj
6	’ve	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 notion	det
8	notion	notion	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 ’ve	obj
9	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	15 hit	obj
10	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	13 daughter	nmod:poss
11	Daddy	Daddy	PROPN	Number=Sing	13 daughter	nmod:poss
12	’s	's	PART	_	11 Daddy	case
13	daughter	daughter	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 hit	nsubj
14	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	15 hit	aux
15	hit	hit	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	8 notion	acl:relcl
16	upon	upon	ADP	_	19 thing	case
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 thing	det
18	finest	fine	ADJ	Degree=Sup	19 thing	amod
19	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 hit	obl
20	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	23 was	obj
21	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	23 was	expl
22	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	23 was	advmod
23	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 thing	acl:relcl
24	since	since	SCONJ	_	29 took	mark
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 Tribe	det
26	Tribe	Tribe	PROPN	Number=Sing	29 took	nsubj
27	of	of	ADP	_	28 Tegumai	case
28	Tegumai	Tegumai	PROPN	Number=Sing	26 Tribe	nmod
29	took	take	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 hit	advcl
30	to	to	SCONJ	_	31 using	mark
31	using	use	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	29 took	advcl
32	shark	shark	NOUN	Number=Sing	34 teeth	nmod:poss
33	’s	's	PART	_	32 shark	case
34	teeth	tooth	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 using	obj
35	instead	instead	ADV	ExtPos=ADP	37 flints	case
36	of	of	ADP	_	35 instead	fixed
37	flints	flint	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 using	obl
38	for	for	ADP	_	42 heads	case
39	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	42 heads	nmod:poss
40	spear	spear	NOUN	Number=Sing	42 heads	compound
41	-	-	PUNCT	_	40 spear	punct
42	heads	head	NOUN	Number=Plur	31 using	obl
43	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 ’ve	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	have	present	Taffy	a notion			vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent notion=Patient
2	hit	present · perfect	your daughter	a notion	the finest thing		vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent that=Theme upon thing=Destination
3	take	past	the Tribe of Tegumai				vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
4	use	gerund	the Tribe of Tegumai not said here	shark's teeth		instead flints; for flints's spear heads	vn use-105.1 «NP V NP PP.predicate»: agent=Agent tooth=Theme for head=Eventuality

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: «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, Project Gutenberg book 2781 (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/pg2781/10/105/