Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xix.--why the Mist Rises From the Water., sentence 61
Ogbaja then counted the bodies again, and the people listened carefully; the cripple answered as before, and they guessed from the direction the voice came from that the last of the witch-men must be in the water-pot, so they looked in and found the cripple.
Who acts: Ogbaja, people, cripple, voice · What happens: count, listen, answer, guess, come, be · To what, where: bodies, direction, last, water pot, cripple
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 (Ogbaja, people, cripple, voice), 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 | Ogbaja | Ogbaja | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 counted | nsubj |
| 2 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 3 counted | advmod |
| 3 | counted | count | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 bodies | det |
| 5 | bodies | body | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 counted | obj |
| 6 | again | again | ADV | _ | 3 counted | advmod |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 listened | punct |
| 8 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 listened | cc |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 people | det |
| 10 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 listened | nsubj |
| 11 | listened | listen | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 counted | parataxis |
| 12 | carefully | carefully | ADV | _ | 11 listened | advmod |
| 13 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 16 answered | punct |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 cripple | det |
| 15 | cripple | cripple | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 answered | nsubj |
| 16 | answered | answer | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 counted | parataxis |
| 17 | as | as | ADP | _ | 18 before | case |
| 18 | before | before | ADV | _ | 16 answered | obl |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 guessed | punct |
| 20 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 22 guessed | cc |
| 21 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 22 guessed | nsubj |
| 22 | guessed | guess | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 counted | parataxis |
| 23 | from | from | ADP | _ | 25 direction | case |
| 24 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 25 direction | det |
| 25 | direction | direction | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 guessed | obl |
| 26 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 27 voice | det |
| 27 | voice | voice | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 came | nsubj |
| 28 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 22 guessed | conj |
| 29 | from | from | ADP | _ | 32 last | case |
| 30 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 32 last | mark |
| 31 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 32 last | det |
| 32 | last | last | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 28 came | obl |
| 33 | of | of | ADP | _ | 37 men | case |
| 34 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 37 men | det |
| 35 | witch | witch | NOUN | Number=Sing | 37 men | compound |
| 36 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 35 witch | punct |
| 37 | men | man | NOUN | Number=Plur | 32 last | obl |
| 38 | must | must | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 44 pot | aux |
| 39 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 44 pot | cop |
| 40 | in | in | ADP | _ | 44 pot | case |
| 41 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 44 pot | det |
| 42 | water | water | NOUN | Number=Sing | 44 pot | compound |
| 43 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 42 water | punct |
| 44 | pot | pot | NOUN | Number=Sing | 37 men | nmod |
| 45 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 48 looked | punct |
| 46 | so | so | ADV | _ | 48 looked | advmod |
| 47 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 48 looked | nsubj |
| 48 | looked | look | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 counted | parataxis |
| 49 | in | in | ADV | _ | 48 looked | advmod |
| 50 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 51 found | cc |
| 51 | found | find | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 48 looked | conj |
| 52 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 53 cripple | det |
| 53 | cripple | cripple | NOUN | Number=Sing | 51 found | obj |
| 54 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 counted | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | count | past | Ogbaja | the bodies | then; again | vn multiply-108 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent body=Theme | |||
| 2 | listen | past | the people | carefully property | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | answer speech: assert | past | the cripple | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 4 | guess | past | people | the direction | vn conjecture-29.5-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 5 | come | past | the voice | the last of the witch men | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme from last=Initial_Location | ||||
| 6 | is | must | the water pot | tree rules | |||||
| 7 | look in | past | people | vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | |||||
| 8 | find | past | people not said here | the cripple | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent cripple=Topic |
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/pg70959/14/61/