Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Law of the Splintered Paddle, sentence 113
The agile chief, fettered as he was, avoided the thrusts, but the steersman was awkward.
Who acts: chief, agile chief, steersman · What happens: fetter, be, avoid · To what, where: agile chief, thrusts
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 (chief, agile chief, steersman), 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 | 3 chief | det |
| 2 | agile | agile | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 chief | amod |
| 3 | chief | chief | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 avoided | nsubj |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 5 fettered | punct |
| 5 | fettered | fetter | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 chief | acl |
| 6 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 8 was | mark |
| 7 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 8 was | nsubj |
| 8 | was | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 fettered | advcl |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 3 chief | punct |
| 10 | avoided | avoid | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 thrusts | det |
| 12 | thrusts | thrust | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 avoided | obj |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 awkward | punct |
| 14 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 18 awkward | cc |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 steersman | det |
| 16 | steersman | steersman | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 awkward | nsubj |
| 17 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 awkward | cop |
| 18 | awkward | awkward | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 avoided | parataxis |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 10 avoided | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | fetter | participle | the agile chief not said here | vn tape-22.4 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient | |||||
| 2 | be | past | chief | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 3 | avoid | past | the agile chief | the thrusts | vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent thrust=Location | ||||
| 4 | is | past | the steersman | awkward property | tree rules |
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/pg66357/18/113/