Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xiii.--of Chief Amaza, His Wife Achi and the Tortoise., sentence 4

The chief then told his wife that she was not to go out of the house as she might give birth to the child when there was no one about to help her.

Who acts: chief, wife, one · What happens: tell, not be, give, be, help · To what, where: wife, house, birth, child · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xiii.--of Chief Amaza, His Wife Achi and the Tortoise.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (chief, wife, one), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 chief	det
2	chief	chief	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 told	nsubj
3	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	4 told	advmod
4	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	6 wife	nmod:poss
6	wife	wife	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 told	iobj
7	that	that	SCONJ	_	12 go	mark
8	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 go	nsubj
9	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 go	cop
10	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	12 go	advmod
11	to	to	PART	_	12 go	mark
12	go	go	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 told	xcomp
13	out	out	ADP	_	16 house	case
14	of	of	ADP	_	16 house	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 house	det
16	house	house	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 go	obl
17	as	as	SCONJ	_	20 give	mark
18	she	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 give	nsubj
19	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	20 give	aux
20	give	give	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 go	conj
21	birth	birth	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 give	obj
22	to	to	ADP	_	24 child	case
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 child	det
24	child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 give	obl
25	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	27 was	advmod
26	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	27 was	expl
27	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 give	advcl
28	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	29 one	det
29	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 was	nsubj
30	about	about	ADV	_	32 help	advmod
31	to	to	PART	_	32 help	mark
32	help	help	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	29 one	acl:relcl
33	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 help	obj
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 told	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	past	the chief		Chief's wife		then		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent wife=Recipient clause=Topic
2	not is not said to happen	past	wife			the house		go property	tree rules
3	give	might	wife	birth	the child				vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent birth=Theme to child=Recipient
4	be	past	no one			there			vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	help	to-infinitive	no one not said here		wife			about property	vn help-72.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Beneficiary

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/pg70959/10/4/

🌲 Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xiii.--of Chief Amaza, His Wife Achi and the Tortoise., sentence 4

The tree

Pragmatics

Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xiii.--of Chief Amaza, His Wife Achi and the Tortoise., sentence 4