Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 4, sentence 33
Whenever the bush buck called out, one of the frogs was to answer him and pretend he had been running all the time.
Who acts: FROG · What happens: call out, be, pretend, run · To what, where: bush buck
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (FROG), 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 | Whenever | whenever | ADV | PronType=Rel | root | root |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 4 buck | det |
| 3 | bush | bush | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 buck | amod |
| 4 | buck | buck | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 one | nsubj |
| 5 | called | call | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 4 buck | acl |
| 6 | out | out | ADP | _ | 5 called | compound:prt |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 8 one | punct |
| 8 | one | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 1 Whenever | conj |
| 9 | of | of | ADP | _ | 11 frogs | case |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 frogs | det |
| 11 | frogs | frog | NOUN | Number=Plur | 8 one | nmod |
| 12 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 answer | cop |
| 13 | to | to | PART | _ | 14 answer | mark |
| 14 | answer | answer | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | 8 one | parataxis |
| 15 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 answer | obj |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 17 pretend | cc |
| 17 | pretend | pretend | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 14 answer | conj |
| 18 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 21 running | nsubj |
| 19 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 21 running | aux |
| 20 | been | be | AUX | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 21 running | aux |
| 21 | running | run | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 17 pretend | ccomp |
| 22 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 24 time | det:predet |
| 23 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 24 time | det |
| 24 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 running | obl:unmarked |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 1 Whenever | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | call out speech: assert | participle | the bush buck not said here | vn initiate_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 2 | is | past | FROG obj; answer property | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | pretend | present | tree rules | ||||||
| 4 | run | past · perfect · progressive | FROG | time | 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/pg70959/21/33/