Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxi.--why the Head of the Male Goat Smells So Strong., sentence 22
It did not take him long to discover his hawk’s feather, which was in the hair of one of the fighting-men.
Who acts: It, feather · What happens: not take, discover, be · To what, where: play, feather, hair
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxi.--why the Head of the Male Goat Smells So Strong.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, feather), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 take | nsubj |
| 2 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 take | aux |
| 3 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 4 take | advmod |
| 4 | take | take | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 5 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 take | obj |
| 6 | long | long | ADV | Degree=Pos | 4 take | advmod |
| 7 | to | to | PART | _ | 8 discover | mark |
| 8 | discover | discover | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 take | advcl |
| 9 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 10 hawk | nmod:poss |
| 10 | hawk | hawk | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 feather | nmod:poss |
| 11 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 10 hawk | case |
| 12 | feather | feather | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 discover | obj |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 hair | punct |
| 14 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 18 hair | nsubj |
| 15 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 hair | cop |
| 16 | in | in | ADP | _ | 18 hair | case |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 hair | det |
| 18 | hair | hair | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 feather | appos |
| 19 | of | of | ADP | _ | 20 one | case |
| 20 | one | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 18 hair | nmod |
| 21 | of | of | ADP | _ | 25 men | case |
| 22 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 25 men | det |
| 23 | fighting | fighting | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 men | compound |
| 24 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 23 fighting | punct |
| 25 | men | man | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 one | nmod |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 take | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not take | past · do-support | It | play | long property | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument he=Destination | |||
| 2 | discover | to-infinitive | play's hawk's feather | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent feather=Topic | |||||
| 3 | is | past | play's hawk's feather | the hair | of one of the fighting men | tree rules |
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/pg70959/15/22/