Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xv.--what Happened At Okuni When Anyone Was Killed By Accident., sentence 36
At last he decided to poison them as he did not wish to kill them openly with a matchet.
Who acts: OGHABI · What happens: decide, poison, not wish, kill · To what, where: last, friends
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xv.--what Happened At Okuni When Anyone Was Killed By Accident.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (OGHABI), 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 | At | at | ADP | _ | 2 last | case |
| 2 | last | last | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 decided | obl |
| 3 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 decided | nsubj |
| 4 | decided | decide | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | to | to | PART | _ | 6 poison | mark |
| 6 | poison | poison | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 decided | xcomp |
| 7 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 poison | obj |
| 8 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 12 wish | mark |
| 9 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 wish | nsubj |
| 10 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 wish | aux |
| 11 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 12 wish | advmod |
| 12 | wish | wish | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 6 poison | advcl |
| 13 | to | to | PART | _ | 14 kill | mark |
| 14 | kill | kill | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 wish | xcomp |
| 15 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 kill | obj |
| 16 | openly | openly | ADV | _ | 14 kill | advmod |
| 17 | with | with | ADP | _ | 19 matchet | case |
| 18 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 19 matchet | det |
| 19 | matchet | matchet | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 kill | obl |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 decided | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | decide | past | OGHABI | last | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | ||||
| 2 | poison not said to happen | to-infinitive | OGHABI not said here | friends = friend | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient | ||||
| 3 | not wish | past · do-support | OGHABI | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme | |||||
| 4 | kill not said to happen | to-infinitive | OGHABI not said here | friends = friend | with a matchet; openly property | vn murder-42.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent they=Patient with matchet=Instrument |
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/pg70959/12/36/