Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xviii.--how the River Came Into Existence; Or, Why a Crab Has No Head., sentence 2
In those days there were no rivers but the Creator made a pond for the elephant to drink out of.
Who acts: rivers, Creator · What happens: be, make, drink out · To what, where: pond
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 (rivers, Creator), 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 | In | in | ADP | _ | 3 days | case |
| 2 | those | that | DET | Number=Plur PronType=Dem | 3 days | det |
| 3 | days | day | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 were | obl |
| 4 | there | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 5 were | expl |
| 5 | were | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 6 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 7 rivers | det |
| 7 | rivers | river | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 were | nsubj |
| 8 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 11 made | cc |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 Creator | det |
| 10 | Creator | Creator | PROPN | Number=Sing | 11 made | nsubj |
| 11 | made | make | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 were | conj |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 13 pond | det |
| 13 | pond | pond | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 made | obj |
| 14 | for | for | ADP | _ | 16 elephant | case |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 elephant | det |
| 16 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 made | obl |
| 17 | to | to | PART | _ | 18 drink | mark |
| 18 | drink | drink | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 11 made | advcl |
| 19 | out | out | ADP | _ | 18 drink | advmod |
| 20 | of | of | ADP | _ | 19 out | fixed |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 were | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | be | past | no rivers | there | day | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||
| 2 | make | past | the Creator | a pond | for the elephant | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent pond=Product for elephant=Beneficiary | |||
| 3 | drink out | to-infinitive | the Creator not said here | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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/pg70959/13/2/