The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Little Friend Coyote, sentence 93

In a little ravine near by there was an old wolf den; she crawled down into it, feet foremost, first carefully obliterating her footsteps in the soft, loose earth about it.

Who acts: old wolf den, den · What happens: be, crawl down, obliterate · To what, where: little ravine, foremost, ravine, footsteps, soft loose earth

This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Little Friend Coyote. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old wolf den, den), 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	In	in	ADP	_	4 ravine	case
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 ravine	det
3	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	4 ravine	amod
4	ravine	ravine	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 was	obl
5	near	near	ADV	_	8 was	advmod
6	by	by	SCONJ	_	8 was	mark
7	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	8 was	expl
8	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
9	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	12 den	det
10	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 den	amod
11	wolf	wolf	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 den	compound
12	den	den	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 was	nsubj
13	;	;	PUNCT	_	15 crawled	punct
14	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 crawled	nsubj
15	crawled	crawl	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 was	parataxis
16	down	down	ADV	_	15 crawled	advmod
17	into	into	ADP	_	18 it	case
18	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 crawled	obl
19	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 feet	punct
20	feet	foot	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 foremost	obl:unmarked
21	foremost	foremost	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 crawled	obl
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	25 obliterating	punct
23	first	first	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	25 obliterating	advmod
24	carefully	carefully	ADV	_	25 obliterating	advmod
25	obliterating	obliterate	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	15 crawled	advcl
26	her	her	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	27 footsteps	nmod:poss
27	footsteps	footstep	NOUN	Number=Plur	25 obliterating	obj
28	in	in	ADP	_	33 earth	case
29	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	33 earth	det
30	soft	soft	ADJ	Degree=Pos	33 earth	amod
31	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 soft	punct
32	loose	loose	ADJ	Degree=Pos	33 earth	amod
33	earth	earth	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 obliterating	obl
34	about	about	ADP	_	35 it	case
35	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 earth	nmod
36	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	past	a old wolf den		a little ravine; there	near property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in ravine=Location
2	crawl down	past	den	foremost feet	ravine	down property	vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme into it=Destination
3	obliterate	gerund	den not said here	two's footsteps	the soft loose earth about earth	carefully, first property	vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent footstep=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/pg66596/18/93/

🌲 The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Little Friend Coyote, sentence 93

The tree

Pragmatics

The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Little Friend Coyote, sentence 93