Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Turtle, sentence 9
“How, my friend!” said a voice behind his ear, and a hand fell on his shoulder.
Who acts: friend, hand · What happens: say, fall · To what, where: voice, ear, shoulder · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Turtle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (friend, hand), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 8 said | punct |
| 2 | How | how | ADV | PronType=Int | 8 said | advmod |
| 3 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 5 friend | punct |
| 4 | my | my | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 5 friend | nmod:poss |
| 5 | friend | friend | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 said | nsubj |
| 6 | ! | ! | PUNCT | _ | 5 friend | punct |
| 7 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 friend | punct |
| 8 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 9 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 10 voice | det |
| 10 | voice | voice | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 said | obj |
| 11 | behind | behind | ADP | _ | 13 ear | case |
| 12 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 13 ear | nmod:poss |
| 13 | ear | ear | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 voice | nmod |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 fell | punct |
| 15 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 fell | cc |
| 16 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 17 hand | det |
| 17 | hand | hand | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 fell | nsubj |
| 18 | fell | fall | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 8 said | conj |
| 19 | on | on | ADP | _ | 21 shoulder | case |
| 20 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 21 shoulder | nmod:poss |
| 21 | shoulder | shoulder | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 fell | obl |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 8 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | past | my friend | a voice | Patkasa's ear | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent voice=Topic | |||
| 2 | fall | past | a hand | Patkasa's shoulder | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on shoulder=Location |
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: «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Project Gutenberg book 338 (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/pg338/10/9/