Hawaiian Historical Legends, The Sons of Kii, sentence 178
New trials of skill were instituted to sift out the least skilful or the most unlucky.
What happens: institute, sift out, try · To what, where: New trials, skill
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: 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 | New | new | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 2 trials | amod |
| 2 | trials | trial | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 instituted | nsubj |
| 3 | of | of | ADP | _ | 4 skill | case |
| 4 | skill | skill | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 trials | nmod |
| 5 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 instituted | aux:pass |
| 6 | instituted | institute | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 7 | to | to | PART | _ | 8 sift | mark |
| 8 | sift | sift | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 6 instituted | xcomp |
| 9 | out | out | ADP | _ | 8 sift | compound:prt |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 skilful | det |
| 11 | least | least | ADV | Degree=Sup | 12 skilful | advmod |
| 12 | skilful | skilful | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 sift | ccomp |
| 13 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 16 unlucky | cc |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 unlucky | det |
| 15 | most | most | ADV | Degree=Sup | 16 unlucky | advmod |
| 16 | unlucky | unlucky | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 12 skilful | conj |
| 17 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 instituted | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | institute | past · passive | New trials of skill | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | sift out | to-infinitive | vn disassemble-23.3 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Patient | ||||||
| 3 | try | skill | nom trial «act 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.
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