The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Bluejay Visits the Ghosts, sentence 41
When they had almost overtaken them Bluejay began to sing too, joining in their song, and at once the people were silent.
Who acts: skull, Bluejay, people · What happens: overtake, begin, sing, join, be · To what, where: people
This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Bluejay Visits the Ghosts. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (skull, Bluejay, people), 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 | When | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 5 overtaken | advmod |
| 2 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 overtaken | nsubj |
| 3 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 overtaken | aux |
| 4 | almost | almost | ADV | _ | 5 overtaken | advmod |
| 5 | overtaken | overtake | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 8 began | advcl |
| 6 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 overtaken | obj |
| 7 | Bluejay | Bluejay | PROPN | Number=Sing | 8 began | nsubj |
| 8 | began | begin | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 9 | to | to | PART | _ | 10 sing | mark |
| 10 | sing | sing | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 8 began | xcomp |
| 11 | too | too | ADV | _ | 10 sing | advmod |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 13 joining | punct |
| 13 | joining | join | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 10 sing | advcl |
| 14 | in | in | ADP | _ | 16 song | case |
| 15 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 song | nmod:poss |
| 16 | song | song | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 joining | obl |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 silent | punct |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 24 silent | cc |
| 19 | at | at | ADP | _ | 20 once | case |
| 20 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 24 silent | obl |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 people | det |
| 22 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 24 silent | nsubj |
| 23 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 24 silent | cop |
| 24 | silent | silent | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 began | conj |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 8 began | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | overtake | past · perfect | skull | people | almost property | tree rules | |||
| 2 | begin | past | Bluejay | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 3 | sing speech: express | to-infinitive | Bluejay not said here | vn sound_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 4 | join | gerund | Bluejay not said here | in skull's song | vn cooperate-73.1-1 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in song=Theme | ||||
| 5 | is | past | the people | silent property | tree rules | ||||
| 6 | sing | skull | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |
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/pg66596/6/41/