Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Opening, sentence 13

Some of the stories are very old and have been handed down from one generation to another, but it is most difficult, almost impossible, to judge with any degree of accuracy how old they really are.

Who acts: stories · What happens: be, hand down, judge · To what, where: one generation

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 (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	Some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	4 stories	det
2	of	of	ADP	_	4 stories	case
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 stories	det
4	stories	story	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 old	nsubj
5	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	7 old	cop
6	very	very	ADV	_	7 old	advmod
7	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	11 handed	cc
9	have	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 handed	aux
10	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	11 handed	aux:pass
11	handed	hand	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 old	conj
12	down	down	ADP	_	11 handed	compound:prt
13	from	from	ADP	_	15 generation	case
14	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	15 generation	nummod
15	generation	generation	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 handed	obl
16	to	to	ADP	_	17 another	case
17	another	another	DET	PronType=Ind	15 generation	nmod
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 difficult	punct
19	but	but	CCONJ	_	23 difficult	cc
20	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 difficult	expl
21	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	23 difficult	cop
22	most	most	ADV	Degree=Sup	23 difficult	advmod
23	difficult	difficult	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 old	conj
24	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 impossible	punct
25	almost	almost	ADV	_	26 impossible	advmod
26	impossible	impossible	ADJ	Degree=Pos	7 old	parataxis
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 judge	punct
28	to	to	PART	_	29 judge	mark
29	judge	judge	VERB	Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin	26 impossible	parataxis
30	with	with	ADP	_	32 degree	case
31	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	32 degree	det
32	degree	degree	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 judge	obl
33	of	of	ADP	_	34 accuracy	case
34	accuracy	accuracy	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 degree	nmod
35	how	how	ADV	PronType=Int	36 old	advmod
36	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 judge	ccomp
37	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	39 are	nsubj
38	really	really	ADV	_	39 are	advmod
39	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	36 old	cop
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	7 old	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	when	other	roles by
1	is	present	some stories		old property	tree rules
2	hand down	present · perfect · passive	some stories not said here	from one generation to another		vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP PP.initial_location»: from generation=Initial_Location
3	is	present	some stories not said here		difficult property	tree rules
4	judge	to-infinitive			with any degree of accuracy	vn estimate-34.2-1-1 «NP V whether/if S»: agent=Agent
5	is	present			old property	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/pg70959/1/13/

🌲 Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Opening, sentence 13

The tree

Pragmatics

Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Opening, sentence 13