Just so stories, How the First Letter Was Written, sentence 181
And here, or hereabouts, they met To hold their racial talks and such-- To barter beads for Whitby jet, And tin for gay shell torques and such.
Who acts: Phoenicians · What happens: meet, hold, barter, talk · To what, where: tin, racial talks, beads
This is a sentence of «Just so stories» by Rudyard Kipling, How the First Letter Was Written. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Phoenicians), 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 | _ | 2 here | cc |
| 2 | here | here | ADV | PronType=Dem | 8 met | advmod |
| 3 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 5 hereabouts | punct |
| 4 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 5 hereabouts | cc |
| 5 | hereabouts | hereabout | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 here | conj |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 8 met | punct |
| 7 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 8 met | nsubj |
| 8 | met | meet | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 9 | To | to | PART | _ | 10 hold | mark |
| 10 | hold | hold | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 8 met | xcomp |
| 11 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 13 talks | nmod:poss |
| 12 | racial | racial | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 13 talks | amod |
| 13 | talks | talk | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 hold | obj |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 15 such | cc |
| 15 | such | such | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 13 talks | conj |
| 16 | -- | -- | PUNCT | _ | 18 barter | punct |
| 17 | To | to | PART | _ | 18 barter | mark |
| 18 | barter | barter | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 hold | conj |
| 19 | beads | bead | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 barter | obj |
| 20 | for | for | ADP | _ | 22 jet | case |
| 21 | Whitby | whitby | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 22 jet | amod |
| 22 | jet | jet | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 barter | obl |
| 23 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 25 tin | punct |
| 24 | And | and | CCONJ | _ | 25 tin | cc |
| 25 | tin | tin | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 met | obl |
| 26 | for | for | ADP | _ | 29 torques | case |
| 27 | gay | gay | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 29 torques | amod |
| 28 | shell | shell | NOUN | Number=Sing | 29 torques | compound |
| 29 | torques | torque | NOUN | Number=Plur | 25 tin | nmod |
| 30 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 31 such | cc |
| 31 | such | such | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 29 torques | conj |
| 32 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 8 met | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | meet | past | Phoenicians = phoenician | tin for gay shell torques | here | tree rules | |||
| 2 | hold | to-infinitive | Phoenicians = phoenician not said here | Phoenicians's racial talks | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent talk=Theme | ||||
| 3 | barter | to-infinitive | Phoenicians = phoenician not said here | beads | for Whitby jet | vn exchange-13.6.1 «NP V NP PP.co-theme»: agent=Agent bead=Theme for jet=Co-Theme | |||
| 4 | talk | Phoenicians = phoenician | nom talk «communication 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: «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/pg2781/9/181/