Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XXVII. the Star That Never Moves, sentence 22

The father of Memainggwah, when crossing a marsh one night, was followed by a dancing light as large as half the moon when it is overhead in the sky.

Who acts: dancing light, marsh · What happens: cross, follow, be · To what, where: marsh, father, sky

This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXVII. the Star That Never Moves. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dancing light, marsh), 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 father	det
2	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 followed	nsubj:pass
3	of	of	ADP	_	4 Memainggwah	case
4	Memainggwah	Memainggwah	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 father	nmod
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 crossing	punct
6	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	7 crossing	advmod
7	crossing	cross	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	2 father	conj
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 marsh	det
9	marsh	marsh	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 crossing	obj
10	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	11 night	nummod
11	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 crossing	obl:unmarked
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	2 father	punct
13	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 followed	aux:pass
14	followed	follow	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
15	by	by	ADP	_	18 light	case
16	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	18 light	det
17	dancing	dancing	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 light	compound
18	light	light	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 followed	obl
19	as	as	ADV	_	20 large	advmod
20	large	large	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 light	amod
21	as	as	ADP	_	24 moon	case
22	half	half	DET	NumForm=Word NumType=Frac PronType=Ind	24 moon	det:predet
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 moon	det
24	moon	moon	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 large	obl
25	when	when	SCONJ	_	28 overhead	mark
26	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 overhead	nsubj
27	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	28 overhead	cop
28	overhead	overhead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 followed	advcl
29	in	in	ADP	_	31 sky	case
30	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	31 sky	det
31	sky	sky	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 overhead	obl
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	14 followed	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	cross	gerund	a dancing light not said here	a marsh		night		vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent marsh=Patient
2	follow	past · passive	a dancing light	the father of Memainggwah				vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Theme
3	is	present	marsh		the sky		overhead 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/pg73136/52/22/

🌲 Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XXVII. the Star That Never Moves, sentence 22

The tree

Pragmatics

Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XXVII. the Star That Never Moves, sentence 22