Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, I. Menabozho and His Three Brothers, sentence 1
The Indians tell that, in a time so long ago no one can tell when, four brothers were born on this earth.
Who acts: Indians, one · What happens: tell, bear · To what, where: that, four brothers, earth · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, I. Menabozho and His Three Brothers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Indians, one), 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 tell | nsubj |
| 3 | tell | tell | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | that | that | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 3 tell | obj |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 8 time | punct |
| 6 | in | in | ADP | _ | 8 time | case |
| 7 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 8 time | det |
| 8 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 tell | obl |
| 9 | so | so | ADV | _ | 10 long | advmod |
| 10 | long | long | ADV | Degree=Pos | 11 ago | advmod |
| 11 | ago | ago | ADV | _ | 15 tell | advmod |
| 12 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 13 one | det |
| 13 | one | one | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 tell | nsubj |
| 14 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 15 tell | aux |
| 15 | tell | tell | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 tell | parataxis |
| 16 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 21 born | advmod |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 born | punct |
| 18 | four | four | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 19 brothers | nummod |
| 19 | brothers | brother | NOUN | Number=Plur | 21 born | nsubj:pass |
| 20 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 21 born | aux:pass |
| 21 | born | bear | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 15 tell | advcl |
| 22 | on | on | ADP | _ | 24 earth | case |
| 23 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 24 earth | det |
| 24 | earth | earth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 born | obl |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 tell | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | tell speech: assert | present | the Indians | that | time | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent that=Recipient | |||
| 2 | tell speech: assert | can | no one | ago property | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | bear | past · passive | four brothers | this earth | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
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/pg73136/70/1/