Hawaiian Historical Legends, Captain Cook, sentence 21
They saw a great thing coming up, rising high above the surf, fire burning on top of it.
Who acts: man, great thing, fire · What happens: see, come up, rise, burn · To what, where: great thing, surf, top
This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Captain Cook. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, great thing, fire), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 saw | nsubj |
| 2 | saw | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 thing | det |
| 4 | great | great | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 thing | amod |
| 5 | thing | thing | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 saw | obj |
| 6 | coming | come | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 5 thing | acl |
| 7 | up | up | ADP | _ | 6 coming | compound:prt |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 rising | punct |
| 9 | rising | rise | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 6 coming | conj |
| 10 | high | high | ADV | Degree=Pos | 9 rising | advmod |
| 11 | above | above | ADP | _ | 13 surf | case |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 surf | det |
| 13 | surf | surf | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 rising | obl |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 fire | punct |
| 15 | fire | fire | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 surf | appos |
| 16 | burning | burn | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 15 fire | acl |
| 17 | on | on | ADP | _ | 18 top | case |
| 18 | top | top | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 burning | obl |
| 19 | of | of | ADP | _ | 20 it | case |
| 20 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 top | nmod |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 saw | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | see | past | man | a great thing | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thing=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | come up | gerund | a great thing not said here | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 3 | rise | gerund | a great thing not said here | the surf | high property | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent above surf=Location | |||
| 4 | burn | gerund | fire not said here | top of top | vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on top=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: «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Project Gutenberg book 66357 (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/pg66357/12/21/