Legends of the Northwest, The Sea-gull, the Ojibwa Legend of the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior., sentence 71
Why then should we rigidly adhere to rules repugnant to the genius of our language, if they can be modified so as to adapt the sonorous Hexameter to the structure of our mother-tongue?
Who acts: we · What happens: adhere, modify, adapt · To what, where: language, sonorous Hexameter, structure
This is a sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, The Sea-gull, the Ojibwa Legend of the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), 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 | Why | why | ADV | PronType=Int | 6 adhere | advmod |
| 2 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 6 adhere | advmod |
| 3 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 6 adhere | aux |
| 4 | we | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 6 adhere | nsubj |
| 5 | rigidly | rigidly | ADV | _ | 6 adhere | advmod |
| 6 | adhere | adhere | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 21 modified | advcl |
| 7 | to | to | ADP | _ | 9 repugnant | case |
| 8 | rules | rule | NOUN | Number=Plur | 9 repugnant | compound |
| 9 | repugnant | repugnant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 adhere | obl |
| 10 | to | to | ADP | _ | 12 genius | case |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 genius | det |
| 12 | genius | genius | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 repugnant | nmod |
| 13 | of | of | ADP | _ | 15 language | case |
| 14 | our | our | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 15 language | nmod:poss |
| 15 | language | language | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 genius | nmod |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 modified | punct |
| 17 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 21 modified | mark |
| 18 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 21 modified | nsubj:pass |
| 19 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 21 modified | aux |
| 20 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 21 modified | aux:pass |
| 21 | modified | modify | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 22 | so | so | ADV | _ | 25 adapt | advmod |
| 23 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 25 adapt | mark |
| 24 | to | to | PART | _ | 25 adapt | mark |
| 25 | adapt | adapt | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 21 modified | advcl |
| 26 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 28 Hexameter | det |
| 27 | sonorous | sonorous | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 28 Hexameter | amod |
| 28 | Hexameter | hexameter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 adapt | obj |
| 29 | to | to | ADP | _ | 31 structure | case |
| 30 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 31 structure | det |
| 31 | structure | structure | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 adapt | obl |
| 32 | of | of | ADP | _ | 36 tongue | case |
| 33 | our | our | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 36 tongue | nmod:poss |
| 34 | mother | mother | NOUN | Number=Sing | 36 tongue | compound |
| 35 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 34 mother | punct |
| 36 | tongue | tongue | NOUN | Number=Sing | 31 structure | nmod |
| 37 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 21 modified | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | adhere | should | we | then | to rules repugnant to the genius of our language; rigidly property | vn cling-22.5 «NP V PP.co-theme»: agent=Theme to repugnant=Co-Theme | |||
| 2 | modify | can · passive | language | vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient | |||||
| 3 | adapt | to-infinitive | the sonorous Hexameter | to the structure of our mother tongue goal | vn adjust-26.9 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent hexameter=Patient to structure=Goal |
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: «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, Project Gutenberg book 8122 (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/pg8122/2/71/