Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, How He United the Five Nations, sentence 3
Nobody had been on it before they cut their way through the thick forest.
Who acts: Nobody, Indians · What happens: have, be, cut · To what, where: country, way, thick forest
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, How He United the Five Nations. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nobody, Indians), 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 | Nobody | nobody | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 2 had | nsubj |
| 2 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | been | be | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 8 cut | advcl |
| 4 | on | on | ADP | _ | 5 it | case |
| 5 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 been | obl |
| 6 | before | before | SCONJ | _ | 8 cut | mark |
| 7 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 8 cut | nsubj |
| 8 | cut | cut | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 2 had | parataxis |
| 9 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 10 way | nmod:poss |
| 10 | way | way | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 cut | obj |
| 11 | through | through | ADP | _ | 14 forest | case |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 forest | det |
| 13 | thick | thick | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 forest | amod |
| 14 | forest | forest | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 cut | obl |
| 15 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 had | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | have | past | Nobody | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 2 | be | participle | Indians = indian not said here | country | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on it=Location | ||||
| 3 | cut | present | Indians = indian | Indians's way | the thick forest | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset way=Product |
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/pg73136/77/3/