Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xix.--why the Mist Rises From the Water., sentence 10
Some of them were witches and others were poisoners, but one of them was a cripple, and could only scramble along on his hands and knees.
Who acts: Some, witches, one · What happens: be, scramble · To what, where: witches, poisoners, cripple, hands
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xix.--why the Mist Rises From the Water.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Some, witches, 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 | Some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 5 witches | nsubj |
| 2 | of | of | ADP | _ | 3 them | case |
| 3 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 1 Some | nmod |
| 4 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 witches | cop |
| 5 | witches | witch | NOUN | Number=Plur | 9 poisoners | nsubj |
| 6 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 7 others | cc |
| 7 | others | other | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 witches | conj |
| 8 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 poisoners | cop |
| 9 | poisoners | poisoner | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 17 cripple | punct |
| 11 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 17 cripple | cc |
| 12 | one | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 17 cripple | nsubj |
| 13 | of | of | ADP | _ | 14 them | case |
| 14 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 one | nmod |
| 15 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 17 cripple | cop |
| 16 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 17 cripple | det |
| 17 | cripple | cripple | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 poisoners | conj |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 scramble | punct |
| 19 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 22 scramble | cc |
| 20 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 22 scramble | aux |
| 21 | only | only | ADV | _ | 22 scramble | advmod |
| 22 | scramble | scramble | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 9 poisoners | conj |
| 23 | along | along | ADV | _ | 22 scramble | advmod |
| 24 | on | on | ADP | _ | 26 hands | case |
| 25 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 26 hands | nmod:poss |
| 26 | hands | hand | NOUN | Number=Plur | 22 scramble | obl |
| 27 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 28 knees | cc |
| 28 | knees | knee | NOUN | Number=Plur | 26 hands | conj |
| 29 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 9 poisoners | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | past | Some of people | witches and others | others conj | tree rules | |||
| 2 | is a | past | witches and others | poisoners but a cripple | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | is a | past | one of people | a cripple | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | scramble | could | witches and others not said here | Ogbaja's hands and knees | along property | vn run-51.3.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on hand=Trajectory |
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/pg70959/14/10/