Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XII. the Marten and the White Rabbit, sentence 52
“Why is it that your tail is so short and your ears are so long?” he asked.
Who acts: side, ears, marten · What happens: be, ask · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XII. the Marten and the White Rabbit. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (side, ears, marten), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 10 short | punct |
| 2 | Why | why | ADV | PronType=Int | 10 short | advmod |
| 3 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 10 short | cop |
| 4 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 short | nsubj |
| 5 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 10 short | mark |
| 6 | your | your | PRON | Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 7 tail | nmod:poss |
| 7 | tail | tail | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 short | nsubj |
| 8 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 10 short | cop |
| 9 | so | so | ADV | _ | 10 short | advmod |
| 10 | short | short | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 20 asked | parataxis |
| 11 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 16 long | cc |
| 12 | your | your | PRON | Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 13 ears | nmod:poss |
| 13 | ears | ear | NOUN | Number=Plur | 16 long | nsubj |
| 14 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 16 long | cop |
| 15 | so | so | ADV | _ | 16 long | advmod |
| 16 | long | long | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 short | conj |
| 17 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 10 short | punct |
| 18 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 10 short | punct |
| 19 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 20 asked | nsubj |
| 20 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 20 asked | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is in a quote | present | side | your tail nsubj; short property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | is in a quote | present | your ears | long property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | ask speech: ask | past | marten | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
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/pg73136/81/52/