Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 3, sentence 26

About a month afterwards the ju-ju began to work, and Chief Erim felt sick; he coughed all day, and one side became useless so that he could not walk.

Who acts: ju, Chief Erim, one side · What happens: begin, work, feel, cough, become, not walk

This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ju, Chief Erim, one side), 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	About	about	ADV	_	9 began	advmod
2	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	3 month	det
3	month	month	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 About	obl:unmarked
4	afterwards	afterwards	ADV	_	9 began	advmod
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 ju	det
6	ju	ju	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 began	nsubj
7	-	-	PUNCT	_	8 ju	punct
8	ju	ju	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 ju	appos
9	began	begin	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
10	to	to	PART	_	11 work	mark
11	work	work	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	9 began	xcomp
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 felt	punct
13	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 felt	cc
14	Chief	Chief	PROPN	Number=Sing	15 Erim	compound
15	Erim	Erim	PROPN	Number=Sing	16 felt	nsubj
16	felt	feel	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 began	conj
17	sick	sick	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 felt	xcomp
18	;	;	PUNCT	_	20 coughed	punct
19	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 coughed	nsubj
20	coughed	cough	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	9 began	conj
21	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	22 day	det
22	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 coughed	obl:unmarked
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	27 became	punct
24	and	and	CCONJ	_	27 became	cc
25	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	26 side	nummod
26	side	side	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 became	nsubj
27	became	become	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	20 coughed	conj
28	useless	useless	ADJ	Degree=Pos	27 became	xcomp
29	so	so	SCONJ	ExtPos=SCONJ	34 walk	mark
30	that	that	SCONJ	_	29 so	fixed
31	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	34 walk	nsubj
32	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	34 walk	aux
33	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	34 walk	advmod
34	walk	walk	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	27 became	xcomp
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	9 began	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	when	other	roles by
1	begin	past	the ju		about, afterwards property	vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	work	to-infinitive	the ju not said here			vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	feel	past	Chief Erim		sick property	vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Stimulus
4	cough	past	ju	day		vn breathe-40.1.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
5	become	past	one side		useless property	tree rules
6	not walk	could	ju			vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme

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/pg70959/20/26/

🌲 Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 3, sentence 26

The tree

Pragmatics

Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 3, sentence 26