Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, The Indians Who Live in Brick Houses, sentence 12

The town is like a great beehive, for the houses are merely rooms built one over the other, each family living in a few small rooms which are reached by means of ladders.

Who acts: town, houses, family · What happens: be, build, live, reach, mean · To what, where: one, other, few small rooms

This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, The Indians Who Live in Brick Houses. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (town, houses, family), 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 town	det
2	town	town	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 beehive	nsubj
3	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 beehive	cop
4	like	like	ADP	_	7 beehive	case
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	7 beehive	det
6	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 beehive	amod
7	beehive	beehive	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
8	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 built	punct
9	for	for	ADP	_	14 rooms	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 houses	det
11	houses	house	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 rooms	nsubj
12	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	14 rooms	cop
13	merely	merely	ADV	_	14 rooms	advmod
14	rooms	room	NOUN	Number=Plur	15 built	obl
15	built	build	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 beehive	parataxis
16	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	15 built	obj
17	over	over	ADP	_	19 other	case
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 other	det
19	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 built	obl
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 family	punct
21	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	22 family	det
22	family	family	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 means	nsubj
23	living	live	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	22 family	acl
24	in	in	ADP	_	28 rooms	case
25	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	28 rooms	det
26	few	few	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 rooms	amod
27	small	small	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 rooms	amod
28	rooms	room	NOUN	Number=Plur	23 living	obl
29	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	31 reached	nsubj
30	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	31 reached	aux:pass
31	reached	reach	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	28 rooms	acl:relcl
32	by	by	ADP	_	31 reached	obl
33	means	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 beehive	parataxis
34	of	of	ADP	_	35 ladders	case
35	ladders	ladder	NOUN	Number=Plur	33 means	obl
36	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 beehive	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is	present	the town			like a great beehive	tree rules
2	is	present	the houses			for rooms; merely property	tree rules
3	build	past		one	the other		vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset one=Product
4	live	gerund	each family not said here		a few small rooms		vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in room=Location
5	reach	present · passive		a few small rooms			vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: subject=Theme
6	mean	present	each family			of ladders	vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=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: «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, Project Gutenberg book 73136 (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/pg73136/17/12/

🌲 Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, The Indians Who Live in Brick Houses, sentence 12

The tree

Pragmatics

Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, The Indians Who Live in Brick Houses, sentence 12