Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Law of the Splintered Paddle, sentence 185
It is said the chief asked them if they were not at the sea of Papai.
Who acts: chief, prisoners · What happens: say, ask, not be · To what, where: head, prisoners, sea · Speech: someone speaks here
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, prisoners), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 said | nsubj |
| 2 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 said | aux:pass |
| 3 | said | say | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 chief | det |
| 5 | chief | chief | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 asked | nsubj |
| 6 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 said | ccomp |
| 7 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 asked | obj |
| 8 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 14 sea | mark |
| 9 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 sea | nsubj |
| 10 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 sea | cop |
| 11 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 14 sea | advmod |
| 12 | at | at | ADP | _ | 14 sea | case |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 sea | det |
| 14 | sea | sea | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 asked | ccomp |
| 15 | of | of | ADP | _ | 16 Papai | case |
| 16 | Papai | Papai | PROPN | Number=Sing | 14 sea | nmod |
| 17 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | present · passive | head | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | ask speech: ask | past | the chief | prisoners = prisoner | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent they=Recipient | ||||
| 3 | not is a condition, not said to happen | past | prisoners = prisoner | the sea | of Papai | 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/pg66357/18/185/