Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxx.--the Game of Hide-and-seek As Played By the Hawk and the Bush Cow., sentence 5
He would then smell the hunters while they were watching him, and run away before they could kill him.
Who acts: king, hunters · What happens: smell, watch, run away, kill · To what, where: hunters, king
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxx.--the Game of Hide-and-seek As Played By the Hawk and the Bush Cow.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (king, hunters), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 smell | nsubj |
| 2 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 smell | aux |
| 3 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 4 smell | advmod |
| 4 | smell | smell | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 6 hunters | det |
| 6 | hunters | hunter | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 smell | obj |
| 7 | while | while | SCONJ | _ | 10 watching | mark |
| 8 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 watching | nsubj |
| 9 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 watching | aux |
| 10 | watching | watch | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 4 smell | advcl |
| 11 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 watching | obj |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 run | punct |
| 13 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 14 run | cc |
| 14 | run | run | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 smell | conj |
| 15 | away | away | ADV | _ | 14 run | advmod |
| 16 | before | before | SCONJ | _ | 19 kill | mark |
| 17 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 kill | nsubj |
| 18 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 19 kill | aux |
| 19 | kill | kill | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 14 run | advcl |
| 20 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 kill | obj |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 smell | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | smell | would | king | the hunters | then | vn see-30.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer hunter=Stimulus | |||
| 2 | watch | past · progressive | hunters = hunter | king | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme | ||||
| 3 | run away | infinitive | king not said here | away property | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 4 | kill | could | hunters = hunter | king | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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/pg70959/23/5/