Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Opening, sentence 120
In the evening, just before it gets dark, you can frequently see thousands of these bats flying off, high up in the air, to their favourite feeding places.
Who acts: trade, you, bats · What happens: get, see, fly off, high up · To what, where: thousands, air
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 (trade, you, bats), 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 | In | in | ADP | _ | 3 evening | case |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 evening | det |
| 3 | evening | evening | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 gets | obl |
| 4 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 3 evening | punct |
| 5 | just | just | ADV | _ | 8 gets | advmod |
| 6 | before | before | SCONJ | _ | 8 gets | mark |
| 7 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 8 gets | nsubj |
| 8 | gets | get | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 9 | dark | dark | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 gets | xcomp |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 see | punct |
| 11 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 14 see | nsubj |
| 12 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 14 see | aux |
| 13 | frequently | frequently | ADV | _ | 14 see | advmod |
| 14 | see | see | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 8 gets | parataxis |
| 15 | thousands | thousand | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 see | obj |
| 16 | of | of | ADP | _ | 18 bats | case |
| 17 | these | this | DET | Number=Plur PronType=Dem | 18 bats | det |
| 18 | bats | bat | NOUN | Number=Plur | 15 thousands | nmod |
| 19 | flying | fly | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 18 bats | acl |
| 20 | off | off | ADP | _ | 19 flying | compound:prt |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 high | punct |
| 22 | high | high | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 14 see | conj |
| 23 | up | up | ADP | _ | 22 high | compound:prt |
| 24 | in | in | ADP | _ | 26 air | case |
| 25 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 26 air | det |
| 26 | air | air | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 high | obl |
| 27 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 32 places | punct |
| 28 | to | to | ADP | _ | 32 places | case |
| 29 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 32 places | nmod:poss |
| 30 | favourite | favourite | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 32 places | amod |
| 31 | feeding | feeding | NOUN | Number=Sing | 32 places | compound |
| 32 | places | place | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 see | obl |
| 33 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 8 gets | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | get | present | trade | evening | dark property | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer | |||
| 2 | see | can | you | thousands of this bats | to bats's favourite feeding places; frequently property | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer thousand=Stimulus | |||
| 3 | fly off | gerund | this bats not said here | vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 4 | high up | infinitive | you not said here | the air | tree rules |
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/pg70959/1/120/