Kaffir folk-lore, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather., sentence 39
There was a tall tree just in front of them, so they hastened to climb up it, and sat down among the branches.
Who acts: tall tree, children · What happens: be, hasten, climb up, sit down · To what, where: tree, branches
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tall tree, children), 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 | There | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 2 was | expl |
| 2 | was | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 tree | det |
| 4 | tall | tall | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 tree | amod |
| 5 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 was | nsubj |
| 6 | just | just | ADV | _ | 8 front | advmod |
| 7 | in | in | ADP | _ | 8 front | case |
| 8 | front | front | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 tree | nmod |
| 9 | of | of | ADP | _ | 10 them | case |
| 10 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 8 front | nmod |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 hastened | punct |
| 12 | so | so | ADV | _ | 14 hastened | advmod |
| 13 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 hastened | nsubj |
| 14 | hastened | hasten | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 was | parataxis |
| 15 | to | to | PART | _ | 16 climb | mark |
| 16 | climb | climb | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 14 hastened | xcomp |
| 17 | up | up | ADP | _ | 16 climb | compound:prt |
| 18 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 climb | obj |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 sat | punct |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 21 sat | cc |
| 21 | sat | sit | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 hastened | conj |
| 22 | down | down | ADV | _ | 21 sat | advmod |
| 23 | among | among | ADP | _ | 25 branches | case |
| 24 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 25 branches | det |
| 25 | branches | branch | NOUN | Number=Plur | 21 sat | obl |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 was | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | be | past | a tall tree in front of children | there | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | hasten | past | children = child | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | climb up | to-infinitive | children = child not said here | tree | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial_Location it=Theme | ||||
| 4 | sit down | past | children = child not said here | the branches | down property | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent among branch=Location |
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: «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Project Gutenberg book 71335 (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/pg71335/12/39/