The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Shield Quiver’s Wife, sentence 78
They were both strong men, and at length the shaft broke, and Shield Quiver held the piece on which was the head.
Who acts: Snakes, shaft, Shield, piece · What happens: be, break, hold · To what, where: strong men, length, piece, head
This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Shield Quiver’s Wife. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Snakes, shaft, Shield, piece), 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 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 men | nsubj |
| 2 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 men | cop |
| 3 | both | both | ADV | _ | 5 men | advmod |
| 4 | strong | strong | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 men | amod |
| 5 | men | man | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 broke | punct |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 12 broke | cc |
| 8 | at | at | ADP | _ | 9 length | case |
| 9 | length | length | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 broke | obl |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 shaft | det |
| 11 | shaft | shaft | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 broke | nsubj |
| 12 | broke | break | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 men | parataxis |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 17 held | punct |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 17 held | cc |
| 15 | Shield | Shield | PROPN | Number=Sing | 17 held | nsubj |
| 16 | Quiver | Quiver | PROPN | Number=Sing | 15 Shield | flat |
| 17 | held | hold | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 broke | conj |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 piece | det |
| 19 | piece | piece | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 held | obj |
| 20 | on | on | ADP | _ | 21 which | case |
| 21 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 24 head | nsubj |
| 22 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 24 head | cop |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 head | det |
| 24 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 piece | acl:relcl |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 men | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | past | Snakes = snake | strong men | both property | tree rules | |||
| 2 | break | past | the shaft | length | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at length=Location | ||||
| 3 | hold | past | Shield | the piece | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent piece=Theme | ||||
| 4 | is a | past | the piece | the head | tree rules |
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: «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Project Gutenberg book 66596 (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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