Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Opening, sentence 97
It was so noticeable that even the soldiers and carriers remarked upon the absence of deaths, and could not understand the reason.
Who acts: ju, soldiers · What happens: be, remark, not understand, absent · To what, where: reason, deaths
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 (ju, soldiers), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 noticeable | nsubj |
| 2 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 noticeable | cop |
| 3 | so | so | ADV | _ | 4 noticeable | advmod |
| 4 | noticeable | noticeable | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 5 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 11 remarked | mark |
| 6 | even | even | ADV | _ | 8 soldiers | advmod |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 soldiers | det |
| 8 | soldiers | soldier | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 remarked | nsubj |
| 9 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 10 carriers | cc |
| 10 | carriers | carrier | NOUN | Number=Plur | 8 soldiers | conj |
| 11 | remarked | remark | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 4 noticeable | advcl |
| 12 | upon | upon | ADP | _ | 14 absence | case |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 absence | det |
| 14 | absence | absence | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 remarked | obl |
| 15 | of | of | ADP | _ | 16 deaths | case |
| 16 | deaths | death | NOUN | Number=Plur | 14 absence | nmod |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 understand | punct |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 21 understand | cc |
| 19 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 21 understand | aux |
| 20 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 21 understand | advmod |
| 21 | understand | understand | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | 4 noticeable | parataxis |
| 22 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 23 reason | det |
| 23 | reason | reason | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 understand | obj |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 noticeable | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | ju | noticeable property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | remark speech: assert | participle | the soldiers and carriers | upon the absence of deaths | vn lecture-37.11-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | not understand | could | the reason | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer reason=Stimulus | |||||
| 4 | absent | deaths | nom absence «state transitive»: of=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: «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/pg70959/1/97/