Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Alapa Regiment, sentence 17

There was a bloody hand-to-hand struggle, in which thrusting with spears and striking with clubs meant almost certain death to those who were not able to get in the first blow.

Who acts: bloody hand struggle, clubs · What happens: be, thrust, strike, mean, not be, get · To what, where: bloody hand struggle, certain death, first blow

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 (bloody hand struggle, clubs), 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	There	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 was	expl
2	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 struggle	det
4	bloody	bloody	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 struggle	amod
5	hand	hand	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 struggle	nsubj
6	-	-	PUNCT	_	10 struggle	punct
7	to	to	ADP	_	10 struggle	case
8	-	-	PUNCT	_	7 to	punct
9	hand	hand	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 struggle	compound
10	struggle	struggle	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	nsubj
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 thrusting	punct
12	in	in	ADP	_	13 which	case
13	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	14 thrusting	obl
14	thrusting	thrust	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	10 struggle	appos
15	with	with	ADP	_	16 spears	case
16	spears	spear	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 thrusting	obl
17	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 striking	cc
18	striking	strike	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	14 thrusting	conj
19	with	with	ADP	_	20 clubs	case
20	clubs	club	NOUN	Number=Plur	18 striking	obl
21	meant	mean	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	20 clubs	acl
22	almost	almost	ADV	_	23 certain	advmod
23	certain	certain	ADJ	Degree=Pos	24 death	amod
24	death	death	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 meant	obj
25	to	to	ADP	_	26 those	case
26	those	that	PRON	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	21 meant	obl
27	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	30 able	nsubj
28	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	30 able	cop
29	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	30 able	advmod
30	able	able	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 those	acl:relcl
31	to	to	PART	_	32 get	mark
32	get	get	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	30 able	xcomp
33	in	in	ADP	_	36 blow	case
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	36 blow	det
35	first	first	ADJ	Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	36 blow	amod
36	blow	blow	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 get	obl
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	past	a bloody hand struggle hand		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	thrust	gerund			a bloody hand struggle hand	with spears	vn push-12-1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent
3	strike	gerund				with clubs	vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location with club=Theme
4	mean	participle	clubs not said here	certain death		to clubs	vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot death=Theme to that=Attribute
5	not is	past				who nsubj; able property	tree rules
6	get	to-infinitive			the first blow		vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer

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/pg66357/14/17/

🌲 Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Alapa Regiment, sentence 17

The tree

Pragmatics

Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Alapa Regiment, sentence 17