Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, Menabozho, or the Great White Hare, sentence 4
Whatever was the first cause of their belief in such a being, there is no way of knowing.
Who acts: Whatever, names · What happens: be, know, believe · To what, where: first cause, way
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, Menabozho, or the Great White Hare. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Whatever, names), 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 | Whatever | whatever | PRON | PronType=Rel | 5 cause | nsubj |
| 2 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 cause | cop |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 cause | det |
| 4 | first | first | ADJ | Degree=Pos NumForm=Word NumType=Ord | 5 cause | amod |
| 5 | cause | cause | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 6 | of | of | ADP | _ | 8 belief | case |
| 7 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 belief | nmod:poss |
| 8 | belief | belief | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 cause | nmod |
| 9 | in | in | ADP | _ | 17 way | case |
| 10 | such | such | DET | PronType=Ind | 17 way | det:predet |
| 11 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 17 way | det |
| 12 | being | be | AUX | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 17 way | cop |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 is | punct |
| 14 | there | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 15 is | expl |
| 15 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 17 way | cop |
| 16 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 17 way | det |
| 17 | way | way | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 belief | nmod |
| 18 | of | of | ADP | _ | 19 knowing | case |
| 19 | knowing | know | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 17 way | nmod |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 cause | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | past | Whatever | the first cause | of names's belief | tree rules | |||
| 2 | is | gerund | such way | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | know | gerund | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer | ||||||
| 4 | believe | names = name | nom belief «cognition 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/pg73136/69/4/