Kaffir folk-lore, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather., sentence 48
The cannibal chopped till she was tired, but the feather continued to keep the tree from receiving harm.
Who acts: cannibal, Ntengu, feather · What happens: chop, be, continue, keep, receive · To what, where: tree, harm
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 (cannibal, Ntengu, feather), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 cannibal | det |
| 2 | cannibal | cannibal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 chopped | nsubj |
| 3 | chopped | chop | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | till | till | SCONJ | _ | 7 tired | mark |
| 5 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 7 tired | nsubj |
| 6 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 7 tired | cop |
| 7 | tired | tired | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 chopped | advcl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 continued | punct |
| 9 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 12 continued | cc |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 feather | det |
| 11 | feather | feather | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 continued | nsubj |
| 12 | continued | continue | VERB | Mood=Ind Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 chopped | parataxis |
| 13 | to | to | PART | _ | 14 keep | mark |
| 14 | keep | keep | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 continued | xcomp |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 tree | det |
| 16 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 keep | obj |
| 17 | from | from | SCONJ | _ | 18 receiving | mark |
| 18 | receiving | receive | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 14 keep | advcl |
| 19 | harm | harm | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 receiving | obj |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 chopped | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | chop | past | the cannibal | vn carve-21.2-2 «NP V ADVP-Middle»: agent=Patient | |||||
| 2 | is | past | Ntengu | tired property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | continue | past | the feather | vn continue-55.3 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 4 | keep | to-infinitive | the feather not said here | the tree | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tree=Theme | ||||
| 5 | receive | gerund | the feather not said here | harm | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent harm=Theme |
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/pg71335/12/48/