Legends of the Northwest, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4, sentence 23

I could never see the propriety of calling the young of foxes _kits_ or _kittens_, which mean _little cats_.

Who acts: I, propriety, kits · What happens: not see, call, mean · To what, where: propriety, young, little cats · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, propriety, kits), 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	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	4 see	nsubj
2	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	4 see	aux
3	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	4 see	advmod
4	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 propriety	det
6	propriety	propriety	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 see	obj
7	of	of	SCONJ	_	8 calling	mark
8	calling	call	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	6 propriety	acl
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 young	det
10	young	young	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 calling	obj
11	of	of	ADP	_	12 foxes	case
12	foxes	fox	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 young	nmod
13	_	_	PUNCT	_	14 kits	punct
14	kits	kit	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 mean	nsubj
15	_	_	PUNCT	_	14 kits	punct
16	or	or	CCONJ	_	18 kittens	cc
17	_	_	PUNCT	_	18 kittens	punct
18	kittens	kitten	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 kits	conj
19	_	_	PUNCT	_	14 kits	punct
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	22 mean	punct
21	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	22 mean	nsubj
22	mean	mean	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 see	parataxis
23	_	_	PUNCT	_	25 cats	punct
24	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	25 cats	amod
25	cats	cat	NOUN	Number=Plur	22 mean	obl
26	_	_	PUNCT	_	22 mean	punct
27	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 see	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	not see	could	I	the propriety		vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer propriety=Stimulus
2	call	gerund	the propriety not said here	the young of foxes		vn initiate_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent young=Recipient
3	mean	present	kits or kittens	little cats	which nsubj	vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent

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/pg8122/21/23/

🌲 Legends of the Northwest, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4, sentence 23

The tree

Pragmatics

Legends of the Northwest, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4, sentence 23