In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 8
They had caught the bird in a snare, and were beating it with sticks.
What happens: catch, beat · To what, where: boys, snare
This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Story of a Tengu[1]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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 | 3 caught | nsubj:pass |
| 2 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 caught | aux |
| 3 | caught | catch | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 bird | det |
| 5 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 caught | obj |
| 6 | in | in | ADP | _ | 8 snare | case |
| 7 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 8 snare | det |
| 8 | snare | snare | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 caught | obl |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 beating | punct |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 12 beating | cc |
| 11 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 beating | aux |
| 12 | beating | beat | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 3 caught | advcl |
| 13 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 beating | obj |
| 14 | with | with | ADP | _ | 15 sticks | case |
| 15 | sticks | stick | NOUN | Number=Plur | 12 beating | obl |
| 16 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 caught | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | catch | past · perfect · passive | boys = boy | a snare | the bird obj | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: subject=Beneficiary bird=Theme | |||
| 2 | beat | past · progressive | snare | with sticks | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent it=Patient with stick=Instrument |
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: «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Project Gutenberg book 8128 (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/pg8128/27/8/