Ojibwa myths and tales, The Creation of Man., sentence 25
The young man used to dream that he could split trees by pointing this “something” at them, but never tried it.
Who acts: man, young man · What happens: use, dream, split, point, not try · To what, where: young man, trees, something, tree
This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, The Creation of Man.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, young 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 man | det |
| 2 | young | young | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 man | amod |
| 3 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 23 tried | nsubj |
| 4 | used | use | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 man | acl |
| 5 | to | to | PART | _ | 6 dream | mark |
| 6 | dream | dream | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 used | xcomp |
| 7 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 10 split | mark |
| 8 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 split | nsubj |
| 9 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 10 split | aux |
| 10 | split | split | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 6 dream | advcl |
| 11 | trees | tree | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 split | obj |
| 12 | by | by | SCONJ | _ | 13 pointing | mark |
| 13 | pointing | point | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 10 split | advcl |
| 14 | this | this | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 16 something | nsubj |
| 15 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 16 something | punct |
| 16 | something | something | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Ind | 13 pointing | obj |
| 17 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 16 something | punct |
| 18 | at | at | ADP | _ | 19 them | case |
| 19 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 pointing | obl |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 tried | punct |
| 21 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 23 tried | cc |
| 22 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 23 tried | advmod |
| 23 | tried | try | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 24 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 tried | obj |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 23 tried | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | use | participle | the young man not said here | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 2 | dream | to-infinitive | vn cognize-85 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 3 | split | could | man | trees | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tree=Patient | ||||
| 4 | point | gerund | man not said here | something this | at Indians = indian | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent something=Patient | |||
| 5 | not try | past | the young man | tree | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=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/pg76755/30/25/