The grateful elephant, Opening, part 13, sentence 69
Taking his stand immediately behind his father, the son, with the thought in his mind, “I’ll hit the mosquito!” raised aloft a big, sharp axe, and split the skull of his father in two.
Who acts: son, I, mosquito · What happens: take, hit, raise, split, mind · To what, where: stand, mosquito, skull, two · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son, I, mosquito), 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 | Taking | take | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 22 hit | csubj |
| 2 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 3 stand | nmod:poss |
| 3 | stand | stand | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Taking | obj |
| 4 | immediately | immediately | ADV | _ | 1 Taking | advmod |
| 5 | behind | behind | ADP | _ | 7 father | case |
| 6 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 7 father | nmod:poss |
| 7 | father | father | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Taking | obl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 son | punct |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 son | det |
| 10 | son | son | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 father | conj |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 thought | punct |
| 12 | with | with | ADP | _ | 14 thought | case |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 thought | det |
| 14 | thought | thought | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Taking | obl |
| 15 | in | in | ADP | _ | 17 mind | case |
| 16 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 17 mind | nmod:poss |
| 17 | mind | mind | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 thought | nmod |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 hit | punct |
| 19 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 22 hit | punct |
| 20 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 22 hit | nsubj |
| 21 | ’ll | will | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 22 hit | aux |
| 22 | hit | hit | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 mosquito | det |
| 24 | mosquito | mosquito | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 hit | obj |
| 25 | ! | ! | PUNCT | _ | 22 hit | punct |
| 26 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 22 hit | punct |
| 27 | raised | raise | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 22 hit | parataxis |
| 28 | aloft | aloft | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 27 raised | xcomp |
| 29 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 33 axe | det |
| 30 | big | big | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 33 axe | amod |
| 31 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 30 big | punct |
| 32 | sharp | sharp | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 33 axe | amod |
| 33 | axe | axe | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 aloft | obl |
| 34 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 36 split | punct |
| 35 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 36 split | cc |
| 36 | split | split | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 22 hit | conj |
| 37 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 38 skull | det |
| 38 | skull | skull | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 split | obj |
| 39 | of | of | ADP | _ | 41 father | case |
| 40 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 41 father | nmod:poss |
| 41 | father | father | NOUN | Number=Sing | 38 skull | nmod |
| 42 | in | in | ADP | _ | 43 two | case |
| 43 | two | two | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 36 split | obl |
| 44 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 22 hit | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | take | gerund | mosquito's stand | behind mosquito's father and the son; with the thought in mosquito's mind; immediately property | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stand=Theme | ||||
| 2 | hit in a quote | future | the son = son | the mosquito | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | raise | participle | aloft property | vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 4 | split | past | I not said here | the skull of mosquito's father | two | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent skull=Patient | |||
| 5 | mind | mosquito | nom mind «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: «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Project Gutenberg book 74064 (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/pg74064/13/69/