Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand, The Story of the Rocks., sentence 7

It would have been a uniform billiard-table on an enormous scale, very gently sloping to the sea, with scarcely a break but for the snow rivers and with never a usable natural harbour.

Who acts: coast · What happens: be, slope · To what, where: uniform billiard table, enormous scale

This is a sentence of «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan, The Story of the Rocks.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (coast), 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	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 table	nsubj
2	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	9 table	aux
3	have	have	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	9 table	aux
4	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	9 table	cop
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 table	det
6	uniform	uniform	ADJ	Degree=Pos	9 table	amod
7	billiard	billiard	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 table	compound
8	-	-	PUNCT	_	7 billiard	punct
9	table	table	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
10	on	on	ADP	_	13 scale	case
11	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	13 scale	det
12	enormous	enormous	ADJ	Degree=Pos	13 scale	amod
13	scale	scale	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 table	nmod
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 sloping	punct
15	very	very	ADV	_	16 gently	advmod
16	gently	gently	ADV	_	17 sloping	advmod
17	sloping	slope	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	9 table	conj
18	to	to	ADP	_	20 sea	case
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	20 sea	det
20	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 sloping	obl
21	,	,	PUNCT	_	25 break	punct
22	with	with	ADP	_	25 break	case
23	scarcely	scarcely	ADV	_	25 break	advmod
24	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	25 break	det
25	break	break	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 sloping	obl
26	but	but	CCONJ	_	30 rivers	cc
27	for	for	ADP	_	30 rivers	case
28	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	30 rivers	det
29	snow	snow	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 rivers	compound
30	rivers	river	NOUN	Number=Plur	25 break	conj
31	and	and	CCONJ	_	37 harbour	cc
32	with	with	ADP	_	37 harbour	case
33	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	37 harbour	advmod
34	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	37 harbour	det
35	usable	usable	ADJ	Degree=Pos	37 harbour	amod
36	natural	natural	ADJ	Degree=Pos	37 harbour	amod
37	harbour	harbour	NOUN	Number=Sing	30 rivers	conj
38	.	.	PUNCT	_	9 table	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	is a	would · perfect	coast	a uniform billiard table		a enormous scale			tree rules
2	slope	gerund	coast not said here					to the sea; with a break but the snow rivers and a usable natural harbour; gently property	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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: «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan, Project Gutenberg book 73766 (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/pg73766/9/7/

🌲 Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand, The Story of the Rocks., sentence 7

The tree

Pragmatics

Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand, The Story of the Rocks., sentence 7