Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Coyote, sentence 35

When a bird stands aloof watching your strange ways, a thin bluish white tissue slips quickly over his eyes and as quickly off again; so quick that you think it was only a mysterious blue wink.

Who acts: bird, thin bluish white tissue, you · What happens: stand, watch, slip, think, be · To what, where: strange ways, eyes, mysterious blue wink · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Coyote. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bird, thin bluish white tissue, you), 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	When	when	ADV	PronType=Int	4 stands	advmod
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 bird	det
3	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 stands	nsubj
4	stands	stand	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	aloof	aloof	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 stands	xcomp
6	watching	watch	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	4 stands	advcl
7	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 ways	nmod:poss
8	strange	strange	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 ways	amod
9	ways	way	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 watching	obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 slips	punct
11	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	15 tissue	det
12	thin	thin	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 tissue	amod
13	bluish	bluish	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 tissue	amod
14	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 tissue	amod
15	tissue	tissue	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 slips	nsubj
16	slips	slip	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 stands	conj
17	quickly	quickly	ADV	_	16 slips	advmod
18	over	over	ADP	_	20 eyes	case
19	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 eyes	nmod:poss
20	eyes	eye	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 slips	obl
21	and	and	CCONJ	_	25 again	cc
22	as	as	ADV	_	23 quickly	advmod
23	quickly	quickly	ADV	_	25 again	advmod
24	off	off	ADV	_	25 again	advmod
25	again	again	ADV	_	16 slips	conj
26	;	;	PUNCT	_	28 quick	punct
27	so	so	ADV	_	28 quick	advmod
28	quick	quick	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 stands	parataxis
29	that	that	SCONJ	_	31 think	mark
30	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	31 think	nsubj
31	think	think	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	28 quick	advcl
32	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	38 wink	nsubj
33	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	38 wink	cop
34	only	only	ADV	_	38 wink	advmod
35	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	38 wink	det
36	mysterious	mysterious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	38 wink	amod
37	blue	blue	ADJ	Degree=Pos	38 wink	amod
38	wink	wink	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 think	ccomp
39	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 stands	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	stand	present	a bird			aloof property	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	watch	gerund	a bird not said here	your strange ways			vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Theme
3	slip	present	a thin bluish white tissue		tissue's eyes	quickly property	vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute
4	think speech: other	present	you				vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	is a	past	bird	a mysterious blue wink			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: «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/pg338/5/35/