Ojibwa myths and tales, Killing the Old People., sentence 2
In the days gone by when an old man or woman got helpless they used to be killed outright.
Who acts: old man, man · What happens: go, get, use, kill
This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Killing the Old People.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man, man), 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 | In | in | ADP | _ | 3 days | case |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 days | det |
| 3 | days | day | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 gone | obl |
| 4 | gone | go | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 5 | by | by | SCONJ | _ | 12 got | mark |
| 6 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 12 got | advmod |
| 7 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 9 man | det |
| 8 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 man | amod |
| 9 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 got | nsubj |
| 10 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 11 woman | cc |
| 11 | woman | woman | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 man | conj |
| 12 | got | get | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 gone | advcl |
| 13 | helpless | helpless | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 12 got | xcomp |
| 14 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 used | nsubj |
| 15 | used | use | VERB | Mood=Ind Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 got | conj |
| 16 | to | to | PART | _ | 18 killed | mark |
| 17 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 18 killed | aux:pass |
| 18 | killed | kill | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 15 used | xcomp |
| 19 | outright | outright | ADV | _ | 18 killed | advmod |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 gone | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | go | participle | day | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 2 | get | past | a old man or woman | helpless property | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer | ||||
| 3 | use | past | man | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 4 | kill | to-infinitive · passive | man not said here | outright property | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle» |
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/pg76755/20/2/