Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 4, sentence 6
That night he got a rope and hanged himself on the branch of a tree overhanging his father’s grave.
Who acts: Eyu, tree · What happens: get, hange, overhang · To what, where: rope, Eyu, branch, grave
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 (Eyu, tree), 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 | That | that | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 2 night | det |
| 2 | night | night | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 got | obl:unmarked |
| 3 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 got | nsubj |
| 4 | got | get | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 rope | det |
| 6 | rope | rope | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 got | obj |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 8 hanged | cc |
| 8 | hanged | hange | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 got | conj |
| 9 | himself | himself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 8 hanged | obj |
| 10 | on | on | ADP | _ | 12 branch | case |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 branch | det |
| 12 | branch | branch | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 hanged | obl |
| 13 | of | of | ADP | _ | 15 tree | case |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 15 tree | det |
| 15 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 branch | nmod |
| 16 | overhanging | overhang | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 15 tree | acl |
| 17 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 18 father | nmod:poss |
| 18 | father | father | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 grave | nmod:poss |
| 19 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 18 father | case |
| 20 | grave | grave | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 overhanging | obj |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 got | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | get | past | Eyu | a rope | night | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer rope=Stimulus | |||
| 2 | hange | past | Eyu not said here | Eyu | the branch of a tree | tree rules | |||
| 3 | overhang | gerund | a tree not said here | Eyu's father's grave | vn contiguous_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme grave=Co-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/pg70959/21/6/