Legends of the Northwest, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4, sentence 5

They use sprigs of it at their feasts, and often burn it to destroy the power of evil spirits.

Who acts: Dakotas · What happens: use, burn, destroy · To what, where: sprigs, feasts, shrub, power

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 (Dakotas), 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	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 use	nsubj
2	use	use	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	sprigs	sprig	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 use	obj
4	of	of	ADP	_	5 it	case
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 sprigs	nmod
6	at	at	ADP	_	8 feasts	case
7	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	8 feasts	nmod:poss
8	feasts	feast	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 use	obl
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	12 burn	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	12 burn	cc
11	often	often	ADV	_	12 burn	advmod
12	burn	burn	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 use	conj
13	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 burn	obj
14	to	to	PART	_	15 destroy	mark
15	destroy	destroy	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 burn	advcl
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 power	det
17	power	power	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 destroy	obj
18	of	of	ADP	_	20 spirits	case
19	evil	evil	ADJ	Degree=Pos	20 spirits	amod
20	spirits	spirit	NOUN	Number=Plur	17 power	nmod
21	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 use	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	use	present	Dakotas = dakota	sprigs of shrub	Dakotas's feasts		vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sprig=Patient
2	burn	present	Dakotas = dakota not said here	shrub		often property	vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Theme
3	destroy	to-infinitive	Dakotas = dakota not said here	the power of evil spirits			vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent power=Patient

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/pg8122/21/5/

🌲 Legends of the Northwest, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4, sentence 5

The tree

Pragmatics

Legends of the Northwest, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4, sentence 5