Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Alapa Regiment, sentence 106
Alexander says: “It was death for a common man to remain standing at the mention of the king’s name.”
Who acts: Alexander, tabu, king · What happens: say, be, remain, stand, mention, name · To what, where: death, mention, name · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Alapa Regiment. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Alexander, tabu, king), 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 | Alexander | Alexander | PROPN | Number=Sing | 2 says | nsubj |
| 2 | says | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 7 death | punct |
| 4 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 7 death | punct |
| 5 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 7 death | nsubj |
| 6 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 7 death | cop |
| 7 | death | death | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 says | ccomp |
| 8 | for | for | ADP | _ | 11 man | case |
| 9 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 11 man | det |
| 10 | common | common | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 man | amod |
| 11 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 death | nmod |
| 12 | to | to | PART | _ | 13 remain | mark |
| 13 | remain | remain | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 says | ccomp |
| 14 | standing | stand | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 13 remain | xcomp |
| 15 | at | at | ADP | _ | 17 mention | case |
| 16 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 mention | det |
| 17 | mention | mention | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 standing | obl |
| 18 | of | of | ADP | _ | 22 name | case |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 king | det |
| 20 | king | king | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 name | nmod:poss |
| 21 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 20 king | case |
| 22 | name | name | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 mention | nmod |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 says | punct |
| 24 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 2 says | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | present | Alexander | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 2 | is a in a quote | past | tabu | death | for a common man | tree rules | |||
| 3 | remain in a quote | to-infinitive | tree rules | ||||||
| 4 | stand in a quote | gerund | the mention of the king's name | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at mention=Location | |||||
| 5 | mention in a quote | the king's name | nom mention «communication transitive»: of=patient | ||||||
| 6 | name in a quote | the king | nom name «communication transitive»: 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: «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/pg66357/14/106/