Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xv.--what Happened At Okuni When Anyone Was Killed By Accident., sentence 44
Okpa and his wife then called their children together and sat down and eat the poisoned food and drank the tombo, but Okpa’s youngest son would not eat or drink anything.
Who acts: Okpa, youngest son · What happens: call, sit down, eat, poison, drink, not eat · To what, where: children, poisoned food, tombo, anything · Speech: someone speaks here
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 (Okpa, youngest son), 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 | Okpa | Okpa | PROPN | Number=Sing | 6 called | nsubj |
| 2 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 4 wife | cc |
| 3 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 4 wife | nmod:poss |
| 4 | wife | wife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 1 Okpa | conj |
| 5 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 6 called | advmod |
| 6 | called | call | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 7 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 children | nmod:poss |
| 8 | children | child | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 called | obj |
| 9 | together | together | ADV | _ | 6 called | advmod |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 sat | cc |
| 11 | sat | sit | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 called | conj |
| 12 | down | down | ADP | _ | 11 sat | compound:prt |
| 13 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 14 eat | cc |
| 14 | eat | eat | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 11 sat | conj |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 food | det |
| 16 | poisoned | poison | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 17 food | amod |
| 17 | food | food | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 eat | obj |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 19 drank | cc |
| 19 | drank | drink | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 sat | conj |
| 20 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 21 tombo | det |
| 21 | tombo | tombo | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 drank | obj |
| 22 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 30 eat | punct |
| 23 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 30 eat | cc |
| 24 | Okpa | Okpa | PROPN | Number=Sing | 27 son | nmod:poss |
| 25 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 24 Okpa | case |
| 26 | youngest | young | ADJ | Degree=Sup | 27 son | amod |
| 27 | son | son | NOUN | Number=Sing | 30 eat | nsubj |
| 28 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 30 eat | aux |
| 29 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 30 eat | advmod |
| 30 | eat | eat | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 6 called | parataxis |
| 31 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 32 drink | cc |
| 32 | drink | drink | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 30 eat | conj |
| 33 | anything | anything | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Ind | 32 drink | obj |
| 34 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 called | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | call speech: assert | past | Okpa and OKPA's wife | calabashes's children | then | together property | vn initiate_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent child=Recipient | ||
| 2 | sit down | past | Okpa and OKPA's wife not said here | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | eat | present | Okpa and OKPA's wife not said here | the poisoned food | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent food=Patient | ||||
| 4 | poison | participle | vn poison-42.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 5 | drink | past | Okpa and OKPA's wife not said here | the tombo | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tombo=Patient | ||||
| 6 | not eat | would | Okpa's youngest son | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 7 | drink | infinitive | Okpa's youngest son not said here | anything | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=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/pg70959/12/44/