Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk., sentence 9
Before the advent of Europeans, the largest implement that was made was this instrument for breaking up the ground.
Who acts: largest implement, instrument · What happens: make, be, break up · To what, where: largest implement, instrument, ground
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Bird That Made Milk.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (largest implement, instrument), 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 | Before | before | ADP | _ | 3 advent | case |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 advent | det |
| 3 | advent | advent | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 instrument | obl |
| 4 | of | of | ADP | _ | 5 Europeans | case |
| 5 | Europeans | European | PROPN | Number=Plur | 3 advent | nmod |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 3 advent | punct |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 implement | det |
| 8 | largest | large | ADJ | Degree=Sup | 9 implement | amod |
| 9 | implement | implement | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 instrument | nsubj |
| 10 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 12 made | nsubj |
| 11 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 made | aux:pass |
| 12 | made | make | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 9 implement | acl:relcl |
| 13 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 instrument | cop |
| 14 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 15 instrument | det |
| 15 | instrument | instrument | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 16 | for | for | SCONJ | _ | 17 breaking | mark |
| 17 | breaking | break | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 15 instrument | acl |
| 18 | up | up | ADP | _ | 17 breaking | compound:prt |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 ground | det |
| 20 | ground | ground | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 breaking | obj |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 15 instrument | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | make | past · passive | the largest implement | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: subject=Product | |||||
| 2 | is a | past | the largest implement | this instrument | before the advent of Europeans | tree rules | |||
| 3 | break up | gerund | this instrument not said here | the ground | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ground=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: «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/pg71335/27/9/