The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The Beaver Stick, sentence 7
He had an old flint knife, but its edge was so ragged and blunted that it would scarcely cut a piece of boiled meat.
Who acts: Robe, edge · What happens: have, be, blunt, cut, boil · To what, where: old flint knife, piece
This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Beaver Stick. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Robe, edge), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 had | nsubj |
| 2 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 knife | det |
| 4 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 knife | amod |
| 5 | flint | flint | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 knife | compound |
| 6 | knife | knife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 had | obj |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 13 ragged | punct |
| 8 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 13 ragged | cc |
| 9 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 10 edge | nmod:poss |
| 10 | edge | edge | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 ragged | nsubj |
| 11 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 ragged | cop |
| 12 | so | so | ADV | _ | 13 ragged | advmod |
| 13 | ragged | ragged | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 2 had | conj |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 15 blunted | cc |
| 15 | blunted | blunt | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 had | conj |
| 16 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 20 cut | mark |
| 17 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 20 cut | nsubj |
| 18 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 20 cut | aux |
| 19 | scarcely | scarcely | ADV | _ | 20 cut | advmod |
| 20 | cut | cut | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 blunted | advcl |
| 21 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 22 piece | det |
| 22 | piece | piece | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 cut | obj |
| 23 | of | of | ADP | _ | 25 meat | case |
| 24 | boiled | boil | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 25 meat | amod |
| 25 | meat | meat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 piece | nmod |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 had | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | have | past | Robe | a old flint knife | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knife=Patient | ||||
| 2 | is | past | knife's edge | ragged property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | blunt | past | Robe not said here | vn other_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient | |||||
| 4 | cut | would | edge | a piece of boiled meat | scarcely property | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.material V NP»: agent=Material piece=Product | |||
| 5 | boil | participle | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=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: «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.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/17/7/