Hawaiian Historical Legends, The First Constitution, sentence 110
“If the king wished the people to work for him they could not refuse.
Who acts: king, people · What happens: wish, work, not refuse · To what, where: people
This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The First Constitution. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, people), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 15 refuse | punct |
| 2 | If | if | SCONJ | _ | 5 wished | mark |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 king | det |
| 4 | king | king | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 wished | nsubj |
| 5 | wished | wish | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 refuse | advcl |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 people | det |
| 7 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 wished | obj |
| 8 | to | to | PART | _ | 9 work | mark |
| 9 | work | work | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 5 wished | advcl |
| 10 | for | for | ADP | _ | 11 him | case |
| 11 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 9 work | obl |
| 12 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 refuse | nsubj |
| 13 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 15 refuse | aux |
| 14 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 15 refuse | advmod |
| 15 | refuse | refuse | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 16 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 15 refuse | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | wish a condition, not said to happen, in a quote | past | the king | the people | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot people=Theme | ||||
| 2 | work in a quote | to-infinitive | the king not said here | for king | vn employment-95.3 «NP V PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent for he=Beneficiary | ||||
| 3 | not refuse in a quote | could | people | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=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/pg66357/21/110/