Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Law of the Splintered Paddle, sentence 112

The steersman broke the sharp edges of lava away from the imprisoned foot, but did not succeed in liberating his chief before the natives began to thrust at him with their spears.

Who acts: steersman, natives · What happens: break, imprison, not succeed, liberate, begin, thrust · To what, where: sharp edges, chief

This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Law of the Splintered Paddle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (steersman, natives), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 steersman	det
2	steersman	steersman	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 broke	nsubj
3	broke	break	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 edges	det
5	sharp	sharp	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 edges	amod
6	edges	edge	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 broke	obj
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 lava	case
8	lava	lava	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 edges	nmod
9	away	away	ADV	_	3 broke	advmod
10	from	from	ADP	_	13 foot	case
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	13 foot	det
12	imprisoned	imprison	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	13 foot	amod
13	foot	foot	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 broke	obl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 succeed	punct
15	but	but	CCONJ	_	18 succeed	cc
16	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 succeed	aux
17	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	18 succeed	advmod
18	succeed	succeed	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	3 broke	parataxis
19	in	in	SCONJ	_	20 liberating	mark
20	liberating	liberate	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	18 succeed	advcl
21	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	22 chief	nmod:poss
22	chief	chief	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 liberating	obj
23	before	before	SCONJ	_	26 began	mark
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 natives	det
25	natives	native	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 began	nsubj
26	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 liberating	advcl
27	to	to	PART	_	28 thrust	mark
28	thrust	thrust	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	26 began	xcomp
29	at	at	ADP	_	30 him	case
30	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 thrust	obl
31	with	with	ADP	_	33 spears	case
32	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	33 spears	nmod:poss
33	spears	spear	NOUN	Number=Plur	28 thrust	obl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 broke	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	break	past	the steersman	the sharp edges of lava	from the imprisoned foot; away property	vn split-23.2 «NP V NP PP.co-patient»: agent=Agent edge=Patient from foot=Co-Patient
2	imprison	participle				vn confine-92 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent
3	not succeed	past · do-support				vn succeed-74-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	liberate	gerund		steersman's chief		vn steal-10.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent chief=Theme
5	begin	past	the natives			vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
6	thrust	to-infinitive	the natives not said here		at steersman; with natives's spears	vn push-12-1-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent at he=Theme

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/pg66357/18/112/

🌲 Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Law of the Splintered Paddle, sentence 112

The tree

Pragmatics

Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Law of the Splintered Paddle, sentence 112