Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Red Mouth Gun, sentence 15

They had guns and here and there a white man who had been kidnapped or persuaded to desert from the few ships already visiting the islands.

Who acts: chiefs · What happens: have, kidnap, persuade, desert, visit · To what, where: guns, white man, few ships, islands

This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Red Mouth Gun. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (chiefs), 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 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	guns	gun	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 had	obj
4	and	and	CCONJ	_	5 here	cc
5	here	here	ADV	PronType=Dem	2 had	conj
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 there	cc
7	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 had	expl
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 man	det
9	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 man	amod
10	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 there	appos
11	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	14 kidnapped	nsubj:pass
12	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 kidnapped	aux
13	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	14 kidnapped	aux:pass
14	kidnapped	kidnap	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	10 man	acl:relcl
15	or	or	CCONJ	_	16 persuaded	cc
16	persuaded	persuade	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	14 kidnapped	conj
17	to	to	PART	_	18 desert	mark
18	desert	desert	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 persuaded	xcomp
19	from	from	ADP	_	22 ships	case
20	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 ships	det
21	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 ships	amod
22	ships	ship	NOUN	Number=Plur	18 desert	obl
23	already	already	ADV	_	24 visiting	advmod
24	visiting	visit	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	18 desert	advcl
25	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	26 islands	det
26	islands	island	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 visiting	obj
27	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	roles by
1	have	past	chiefs = chief	guns	there	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent gun=Patient
2	kidnap	past · perfect · passive		a white man		vn steal-10.5 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme
3	persuade	participle				vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Result
4	desert	to-infinitive			the few ships	vn leave-51.2-1 «NP V NP.initial_location PP.destination»: agent=Theme from ship=Destination
5	visit	gerund		the islands		vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent island=Co-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/pg66357/17/15/

🌲 Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Red Mouth Gun, sentence 15

The tree

Pragmatics

Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Red Mouth Gun, sentence 15