Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, How the Cave People Found Dry Land on the Earth, sentence 34
Their eyes were like owls’ eyes, and they covered them with their hands till they were strong.
Who acts: eyes, people · What happens: be, cover · To what, where: eyes
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, How the Cave People Found Dry Land on the Earth. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (eyes, people), 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 | Their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 2 eyes | nmod:poss |
| 2 | eyes | eye | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 were | nsubj |
| 3 | were | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | like | like | ADP | _ | 7 eyes | case |
| 5 | owls | owl | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 eyes | nmod:poss |
| 6 | ’ | 's | PART | _ | 5 owls | case |
| 7 | eyes | eye | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 were | obl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 covered | punct |
| 9 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 covered | cc |
| 10 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 covered | nsubj |
| 11 | covered | cover | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 were | parataxis |
| 12 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 covered | obj |
| 13 | with | with | ADP | _ | 15 hands | case |
| 14 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 15 hands | nmod:poss |
| 15 | hands | hand | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 covered | obl |
| 16 | till | till | SCONJ | _ | 19 strong | mark |
| 17 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 strong | nsubj |
| 18 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 19 strong | cop |
| 19 | strong | strong | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 covered | advcl |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 were | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | be | past | people's eyes | like owls's eyes | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | cover | past | people | eyes = eye | with people's hands | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent they=Destination with hand=Theme | |||
| 3 | is | past | people | strong property | tree rules |
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/pg73136/24/34/