The grateful elephant, Opening, part 15, sentence 39

Now caravan-leaders, when the wind is ahead, to avoid the dust, ride in front, sitting in their cars, surrounded by their attendants.

Who acts: you, wind · What happens: caravan, be, avoid, ride, sit, surround · To what, where: leaders, dust, front, cars

This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, wind), 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	Now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	2 caravan	advmod
2	caravan	caravan	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	-	-	PUNCT	_	4 leaders	punct
4	leaders	leader	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 caravan	obj
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	10 ahead	punct
6	when	when	SCONJ	_	10 ahead	mark
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 wind	det
8	wind	wind	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 ahead	nsubj
9	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	10 ahead	cop
10	ahead	ahead	ADV	_	2 caravan	advmod
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 avoid	punct
12	to	to	PART	_	13 avoid	mark
13	avoid	avoid	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	2 caravan	conj
14	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	15 dust	det
15	dust	dust	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 avoid	obj
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 ride	punct
17	ride	ride	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	2 caravan	parataxis
18	in	in	ADP	_	19 front	case
19	front	front	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 ride	obl
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 sitting	punct
21	sitting	sit	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	17 ride	advcl
22	in	in	ADP	_	24 cars	case
23	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	24 cars	nmod:poss
24	cars	car	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 sitting	obl
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 surrounded	punct
26	surrounded	surround	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	24 cars	acl
27	by	by	ADP	_	29 attendants	case
28	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	29 attendants	nmod:poss
29	attendants	attendant	NOUN	Number=Plur	26 surrounded	obl:agent
30	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 caravan	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	caravan	imperative	you not said here	leaders		now		vn vehicle-51.4.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leader=Theme
2	is	present	the wind				ahead property	tree rules
3	avoid	to-infinitive	you not said here	the dust				vn avoid-52 «NP V NP.location»: agent=Agent dust=Location
4	ride	infinitive			front			vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP.agent V»: agent=Agent
5	sit	gerund			lilies's cars			vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in car=Location
6	surround	participle		lilies's cars not said here			lilies's attendants obl:agent	vn contiguous_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: 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: «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/pg74064/15/39/

🌲 The grateful elephant, Opening, part 15, sentence 39

The tree

Pragmatics

The grateful elephant, Opening, part 15, sentence 39