Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xviii.--how the River Came Into Existence; Or, Why a Crab Has No Head., sentence 18
The elephant went down to the pond but found to his intense surprise and disgust that there was no water, and that the pond was full of mud.
Who acts: elephant, pond · What happens: go down, find, be, surprise
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xviii.--how the River Came Into Existence; Or, Why a Crab Has No Head.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (elephant, pond), 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 elephant | det |
| 2 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 went | nsubj |
| 3 | went | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | down | down | ADV | _ | 3 went | advmod |
| 5 | to | to | ADP | _ | 7 pond | case |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 pond | det |
| 7 | pond | pond | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 went | obl |
| 8 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 9 found | cc |
| 9 | found | find | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 went | conj |
| 10 | to | to | ADP | _ | 13 surprise | case |
| 11 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 13 surprise | nmod:poss |
| 12 | intense | intense | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 13 surprise | amod |
| 13 | surprise | surprise | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 found | obl |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 15 disgust | cc |
| 15 | disgust | disgust | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 surprise | conj |
| 16 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 18 was | nsubj |
| 17 | there | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 18 was | expl |
| 18 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 disgust | acl:relcl |
| 19 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 20 water | det |
| 20 | water | water | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 was | nsubj |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 27 full | punct |
| 22 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 27 full | cc |
| 23 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 27 full | mark |
| 24 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 25 pond | det |
| 25 | pond | pond | NOUN | Number=Sing | 27 full | nsubj |
| 26 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 27 full | cop |
| 27 | full | full | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 went | parataxis |
| 28 | of | of | ADP | _ | 29 mud | case |
| 29 | mud | mud | NOUN | Number=Sing | 27 full | obl |
| 30 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 went | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | go down | past | the elephant | to the pond; down property | vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1-1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute | ||||
| 2 | find | past | the elephant not said here | to elephant's intense surprise and disgust | vn declare-29.4-1-1 «NP V what S_INF»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | is | past | the pond | of mud; full property | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | surprise | elephant | nom surprise «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |
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/pg70959/13/18/