Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Sons of Kii, sentence 166
Often the chiefs preferred the carefully kept, grass-covered, smooth hillside where but few marks of sleds appeared.
Who acts: chiefs, few marks · What happens: prefer, keep, cover, appear, mark · To what, where: smooth hillside, sleds
This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt, The Sons of Kii. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (chiefs, few marks), 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 | Often | often | ADV | _ | 4 preferred | advmod |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 chiefs | det |
| 3 | chiefs | chief | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 preferred | nsubj |
| 4 | preferred | prefer | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 kept | det |
| 6 | carefully | carefully | ADV | _ | 7 kept | advmod |
| 7 | kept | keep | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 4 preferred | ccomp |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 covered | punct |
| 9 | grass | grass | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 covered | compound |
| 10 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 9 grass | punct |
| 11 | covered | cover | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 7 kept | conj |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 hillside | punct |
| 13 | smooth | smooth | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 hillside | amod |
| 14 | hillside | hillside | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 covered | obl |
| 15 | where | where | ADV | PronType=Rel | 21 appeared | advmod |
| 16 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 18 marks | cc |
| 17 | few | few | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 18 marks | amod |
| 18 | marks | mark | NOUN | Number=Plur | 21 appeared | nsubj |
| 19 | of | of | ADP | _ | 20 sleds | case |
| 20 | sleds | sled | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 marks | nmod |
| 21 | appeared | appear | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 hillside | acl:relcl |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 preferred | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | prefer | past | the chiefs | often property | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | keep | participle | the chiefs not said here | carefully property | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | cover | participle | the chiefs not said here | smooth hillside | grass compound | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme | |||
| 4 | appear | past | few marks of sleds | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 5 | mark | sleds | nom mark «cognition transitive»: of=patient |
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/pg66357/7/166/