Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (mythology), Hiiaka’s Battle With Demons, sentence 75
The birds said, “We saw her skirt moving against the gods, up and down, back and forth.”
Who acts: birds, We, skirt · What happens: say, see, move · To what, where: skirt · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes (mythology)» by W. D. Westervelt, Hiiaka’s Battle With Demons. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (birds, We, skirt), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 birds | det |
| 2 | birds | bird | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 said | nsubj |
| 3 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 7 saw | punct |
| 5 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 7 saw | punct |
| 6 | We | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 7 saw | nsubj |
| 7 | saw | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 said | ccomp |
| 8 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 9 skirt | nmod:poss |
| 9 | skirt | skirt | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 saw | obj |
| 10 | moving | move | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 9 skirt | acl |
| 11 | against | against | ADP | _ | 13 gods | case |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 gods | det |
| 13 | gods | god | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 moving | obl |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 up | punct |
| 15 | up | up | ADV | _ | 7 saw | advmod |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 17 down | cc |
| 17 | down | down | ADV | _ | 15 up | conj |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 back | punct |
| 19 | back | back | ADV | _ | 7 saw | advmod |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 21 forth | cc |
| 21 | forth | forth | ADV | _ | 19 back | conj |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 said | punct |
| 23 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | past | the birds | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 2 | see in a quote | past | We | follower's skirt | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer skirt=Stimulus | ||||
| 3 | move in a quote | gerund | follower's skirt not said here | against the gods | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V PP.trajectory»: agent=Theme against god=Trajectory |
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 Legends of Volcanoes (mythology)» by W. D. Westervelt, Project Gutenberg book 66516 (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/pg66516/16/75/