Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 26
The chief wanted very much to see the bird, but the cannibal would not open the bag.
Who acts: chief, cannibal · What happens: want, see, not open · To what, where: bird, bag
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (chief, cannibal), 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 chief | det |
| 2 | chief | chief | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 wanted | nsubj |
| 3 | wanted | want | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | very | very | ADV | _ | 5 much | advmod |
| 5 | much | much | ADV | _ | 3 wanted | advmod |
| 6 | to | to | PART | _ | 7 see | mark |
| 7 | see | see | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 wanted | xcomp |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 bird | det |
| 9 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 see | obj |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 16 open | punct |
| 11 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 16 open | cc |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 cannibal | det |
| 13 | cannibal | cannibal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 open | nsubj |
| 14 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 16 open | aux |
| 15 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 16 open | advmod |
| 16 | open | open | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 wanted | parataxis |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 bag | det |
| 18 | bag | bag | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 open | obj |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 wanted | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | want | past | the chief | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme | |||||
| 2 | see not said to happen | to-infinitive | the chief not said here | the bird | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer bird=Stimulus | ||||
| 3 | not open | would | the cannibal | the bag | vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bag=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/pg71335/14/26/