Legends of the Northwest, The Feast of the Virgins., part 1, sentence 64
Death walks like a shadow among my kin; And swift are the feet of the flying years That cover Wakâwa with frost and tears, And leave their tracks on his wrinkled skin.
Who acts: Death, swift feet · What happens: walk, be, fly, cover, leave, wrinkle · To what, where: kin, swift feet, Wakâwa, tracks, wrinkled skin
This is a sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, The Feast of the Virgins., part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Death, swift feet), 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 | Death | death | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 walks | nsubj |
| 2 | walks | walk | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | like | like | ADP | _ | 5 shadow | case |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 shadow | det |
| 5 | shadow | shadow | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 walks | obl |
| 6 | among | among | ADP | _ | 8 kin | case |
| 7 | my | my | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 kin | nmod:poss |
| 8 | kin | kin | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 walks | obl |
| 9 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 20 cover | punct |
| 10 | And | and | CCONJ | _ | 14 feet | cc |
| 11 | swift | swift | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 feet | compound |
| 12 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 14 feet | cop |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 feet | det |
| 14 | feet | foot | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 cover | nsubj |
| 15 | of | of | ADP | _ | 18 years | case |
| 16 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 years | det |
| 17 | flying | fly | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 18 years | amod |
| 18 | years | year | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 feet | nmod |
| 19 | That | that | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 20 cover | nsubj |
| 20 | cover | cover | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 2 walks | parataxis |
| 21 | Wakâwa | Wakâwa | PROPN | Number=Sing | 20 cover | obj |
| 22 | with | with | ADP | _ | 23 frost | case |
| 23 | frost | frost | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 cover | obl |
| 24 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 25 tears | cc |
| 25 | tears | tear | NOUN | Number=Plur | 23 frost | conj |
| 26 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 28 leave | punct |
| 27 | And | and | CCONJ | _ | 28 leave | cc |
| 28 | leave | leave | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 20 cover | conj |
| 29 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 30 tracks | nmod:poss |
| 30 | tracks | track | NOUN | Number=Plur | 28 leave | obj |
| 31 | on | on | ADP | _ | 34 skin | case |
| 32 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 34 skin | nmod:poss |
| 33 | wrinkled | wrinkle | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 34 skin | amod |
| 34 | skin | skin | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 leave | obl |
| 35 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 walks | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | walk | present | Death | my kin | like a shadow | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme among kin=Trajectory | |||
| 2 | is a | present | the swift feet | year | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | fly | gerund | vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||||
| 4 | cover | present | the swift feet | Wakâwa | with frost and tears; That nsubj | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent wakâwa=Destination with frost=Theme | |||
| 5 | leave | infinitive | the swift feet not said here | feet's tracks | Death's wrinkled skin | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent track=Theme on skin=Location | |||
| 6 | wrinkle | participle | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: agent=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/pg8122/8/64/