Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, Books in the Indian Language, sentence 3

The Indians had no printed languages with letters before the white man came; their painted or carved picture-writing meant much to them.

Who acts: Indians, white man, painted picture writing, languages · What happens: have, print, come, paint, carve, mean · To what, where: printed languages, much

This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, Books in the Indian Language. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Indians, white man, painted picture writing, languages), 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 Indians	det
2	Indians	Indian	PROPN	Number=Plur	3 had	nsubj
3	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	6 languages	det
5	printed	print	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 languages	amod
6	languages	language	NOUN	Number=Plur	3 had	obj
7	with	with	ADP	_	8 letters	case
8	letters	letter	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 languages	nmod
9	before	before	SCONJ	_	13 came	mark
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 man	det
11	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 man	amod
12	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 came	nsubj
13	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 had	advcl
14	;	;	PUNCT	_	22 meant	punct
15	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	21 writing	nmod:poss
16	painted	paint	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	21 writing	amod
17	or	or	CCONJ	_	18 carved	cc
18	carved	carve	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	16 painted	conj
19	picture	picture	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 writing	compound
20	-	-	PUNCT	_	19 picture	punct
21	writing	writing	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 meant	nsubj
22	meant	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 had	parataxis
23	much	much	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 meant	obj
24	to	to	ADP	_	25 them	case
25	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 much	nmod
26	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	have	past	the Indians	no printed languages	with letters	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent language=Patient
2	print	participle				vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	come	past	the white man			vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	paint	participle				vn image_impression-25.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	carve	participle				vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
6	mean	past	languages's painted picture writing	much	to languages = language	vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Pivot much=Theme to they=Attribute
7	write		languages = language			nom writing «act transitive»: poss=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/pg73136/5/3/

🌲 Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, Books in the Indian Language, sentence 3

The tree

Pragmatics

Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, Books in the Indian Language, sentence 3