Ojibwa myths and tales, Ojibwa and Mohawks. (no. 4.), sentence 38
The killing or torturing of children was the worst thing Indians could do.
Who acts: killing, Indians · What happens: torture, be, do · To what, where: worst thing
This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Ojibwa and Mohawks. (no. 4.). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (killing, 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 killing | det |
| 2 | killing | killing | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 thing | nsubj |
| 3 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 4 torturing | cc |
| 4 | torturing | torture | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 2 killing | conj |
| 5 | of | of | ADP | _ | 6 children | case |
| 6 | children | child | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 torturing | obl |
| 7 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 thing | cop |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 thing | det |
| 9 | worst | bad | ADJ | Degree=Sup | 10 thing | amod |
| 10 | thing | thing | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 11 | Indians | Indian | PROPN | Number=Plur | 13 do | nsubj |
| 12 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 13 do | aux |
| 13 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 thing | acl:relcl |
| 14 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 10 thing | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | torture | gerund | the killing not said here | of children | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer | ||||
| 2 | is a | past | the killing | the worst thing | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | do | could | Indians | the worst thing not said here | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Eventuality |
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: «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Project Gutenberg book 76755 (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/pg76755/11/38/