Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Opening, sentence 101
There are ten different languages spoken in this district, and it would be extremely difficult to give exact translations of the stories, particularly as some of them as told would be quite unfit for publication.
Who acts: ten different languages, stories · What happens: be, speak, give, tell, translate · To what, where: ten different languages, district, exact translations · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Opening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ten different languages, stories), 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 | There | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 2 are | expl |
| 2 | are | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | ten | ten | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 5 languages | nummod |
| 4 | different | different | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 languages | amod |
| 5 | languages | language | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 are | nsubj |
| 6 | spoken | speak | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 5 languages | acl |
| 7 | in | in | ADP | _ | 9 district | case |
| 8 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 9 district | det |
| 9 | district | district | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 spoken | obl |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 16 difficult | punct |
| 11 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 16 difficult | cc |
| 12 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 difficult | expl |
| 13 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 16 difficult | aux |
| 14 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 16 difficult | cop |
| 15 | extremely | extremely | ADV | _ | 16 difficult | advmod |
| 16 | difficult | difficult | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 2 are | conj |
| 17 | to | to | PART | _ | 18 give | mark |
| 18 | give | give | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 16 difficult | xcomp |
| 19 | exact | exact | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 20 translations | amod |
| 20 | translations | translation | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 give | obj |
| 21 | of | of | ADP | _ | 23 stories | case |
| 22 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 23 stories | det |
| 23 | stories | story | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 translations | nmod |
| 24 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 27 some | punct |
| 25 | particularly | particularly | ADV | _ | 27 some | advmod |
| 26 | as | as | ADP | _ | 27 some | case |
| 27 | some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 18 give | obj |
| 28 | of | of | ADP | _ | 29 them | case |
| 29 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 27 some | nmod |
| 30 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 35 unfit | mark |
| 31 | told | tell | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 35 unfit | advcl |
| 32 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 35 unfit | aux |
| 33 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 35 unfit | cop |
| 34 | quite | quite | ADV | _ | 35 unfit | advmod |
| 35 | unfit | unfit | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 18 give | advcl |
| 36 | for | for | ADP | _ | 37 publication | case |
| 37 | publication | publication | NOUN | Number=Sing | 35 unfit | obl |
| 38 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 are | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | does | present | ten different languages | there | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | speak speech: other | participle | ten different languages not said here | this district | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | is | would | ten different languages not said here | difficult, extremely property | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | give | to-infinitive | ten different languages not said here | exact translations of the stories | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent translation=Recipient some=Theme | ||||
| 5 | tell speech: assert | participle | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 6 | is | would | ten different languages not said here | for publication; unfit property | tree rules | ||||
| 7 | translate | the stories | nom translation «communication intransitive»: of=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: «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Project Gutenberg book 70959 (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/pg70959/1/101/