Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 2, sentence 14
The hare told them to go some little distance from the Egbo house, so that they should not be driven back upon him at once.
Who acts: hare · What happens: tell, go, not drive back · To what, where: people, little distance, Egbo house · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hare), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 hare | det |
| 2 | hare | hare | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 told | nsubj |
| 3 | told | tell | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 told | iobj |
| 5 | to | to | PART | _ | 6 go | mark |
| 6 | go | go | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 told | xcomp |
| 7 | some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 9 distance | det |
| 8 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 distance | amod |
| 9 | distance | distance | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 go | obl |
| 10 | from | from | ADP | _ | 13 house | case |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 house | det |
| 12 | Egbo | Egbo | PROPN | Number=Sing | 13 house | compound |
| 13 | house | house | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 go | obl |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 driven | punct |
| 15 | so | so | SCONJ | ExtPos=SCONJ | 21 driven | mark |
| 16 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 15 so | fixed |
| 17 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 21 driven | nsubj:pass |
| 18 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 21 driven | aux |
| 19 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 21 driven | advmod |
| 20 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 21 driven | aux:pass |
| 21 | driven | drive | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 told | ccomp |
| 22 | back | back | ADV | _ | 21 driven | advmod |
| 23 | upon | upon | ADP | _ | 24 him | case |
| 24 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 21 driven | obl |
| 25 | at | at | ADP | _ | 26 once | case |
| 26 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 21 driven | obl |
| 27 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 told | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | tell speech: assert | past | the hare | people | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic | ||||
| 2 | go not said to happen | to-infinitive | the hare not said here | some little distance | the Egbo house | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme from house=Initial_Location | |||
| 3 | not drive back | should · passive | people | upon hare | vn put_direction-9.4 «NP V NP PP.initial_location PP.destination»: subject=Theme upon he=Destination at once=Initial_Location |
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/pg70959/19/14/