Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxii.--a Story of the Great Famine., sentence 26
At this time the alligators were grey-coloured without any markings, and had for some time been wanting to change their colouring.
Who acts: alligators, some · What happens: be, have, want, change · To what, where: colouring
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxii.--a Story of the Great Famine.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (alligators, some), 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 | At | at | ADP | _ | 3 time | case |
| 2 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 3 time | det |
| 3 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 coloured | obl |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 alligators | det |
| 5 | alligators | alligator | NOUN | Number=Plur | 9 coloured | nsubj |
| 6 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 coloured | cop |
| 7 | grey | grey | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 coloured | compound |
| 8 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 9 coloured | punct |
| 9 | coloured | coloured | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 10 | without | without | ADP | _ | 12 markings | case |
| 11 | any | any | DET | PronType=Ind | 12 markings | det |
| 12 | markings | marking | NOUN | Number=Plur | 9 coloured | obl |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 had | punct |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 15 had | cc |
| 15 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 coloured | parataxis |
| 16 | for | for | SCONJ | _ | 20 wanting | mark |
| 17 | some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 20 wanting | nsubj |
| 18 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 wanting | obl:unmarked |
| 19 | been | be | AUX | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 20 wanting | aux |
| 20 | wanting | want | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 15 had | ccomp |
| 21 | to | to | PART | _ | 22 change | mark |
| 22 | change | change | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 20 wanting | xcomp |
| 23 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 24 colouring | nmod:poss |
| 24 | colouring | colouring | NOUN | Number=Sing | 22 change | obj |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 9 coloured | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | the alligators | time | without any markings; coloured property | tree rules | |||
| 2 | have | past | tree rules | ||||||
| 3 | want | participle · progressive | some | time | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme | ||||
| 4 | change not said to happen | to-infinitive | some not said here | alligators's colouring | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent colouring=Patient |
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/pg70959/16/26/