Hawaiian Historical Legends, Maui Seeking Immortality, sentence 13
Maui once said to the goddess of the moon: “Let death be short.
Who acts: Maui, death · What happens: say, let, be · To what, where: goddess, death · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, Maui Seeking Immortality. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Maui, death), 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 | Maui | Maui | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 said | nsubj |
| 2 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 3 said | advmod |
| 3 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | to | to | ADP | _ | 6 goddess | case |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 6 goddess | det |
| 6 | goddess | goddess | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 said | obl |
| 7 | of | of | ADP | _ | 9 moon | case |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 moon | det |
| 9 | moon | moon | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 goddess | nmod |
| 10 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 12 Let | punct |
| 11 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 12 Let | punct |
| 12 | Let | let | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 said | ccomp |
| 13 | death | death | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 Let | obj |
| 14 | be | be | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 Let | xcomp |
| 15 | short | short | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 be | xcomp |
| 16 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | past | Maui | the goddess of the moon | once property | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to goddess=Recipient clause=Topic | |||
| 2 | let in a quote | infinitive | death | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | be in a quote | infinitive | death not said here | short property | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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.
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