Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxxi.--chief Kekong’s Daughter ’ndere Who Married a Python., part 2, sentence 69
When Agbor heard the now familiar voice of the bird, he looked round everywhere, but, as he could not see Aictor, he was frightened, and told his wife to pick up her load at once.
Who acts: Agbor · What happens: hear, look round, not see, frighten, tell, pick up · To what, where: familiar voice, Aictor, AGBOR, wife, load · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxxi.--chief Kekong’s Daughter ’ndere Who Married a Python., 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 (Agbor), 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 | When | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 3 heard | advmod |
| 2 | Agbor | Agbor | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 heard | nsubj |
| 3 | heard | hear | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 looked | advcl |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 voice | det |
| 5 | now | now | ADV | PronType=Dem | 6 familiar | advmod |
| 6 | familiar | familiar | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 voice | amod |
| 7 | voice | voice | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 heard | obj |
| 8 | of | of | ADP | _ | 10 bird | case |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 bird | det |
| 10 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 voice | nmod |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 3 heard | punct |
| 12 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 looked | nsubj |
| 13 | looked | look | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 14 | round | round | ADV | _ | 15 everywhere | advmod |
| 15 | everywhere | everywhere | ADV | PronType=Tot | 13 looked | advmod |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 see | punct |
| 17 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 23 see | cc |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 see | punct |
| 19 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 23 see | mark |
| 20 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 see | nsubj |
| 21 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 23 see | aux |
| 22 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 23 see | advmod |
| 23 | see | see | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 13 looked | conj |
| 24 | Aictor | Aictor | PROPN | Number=Sing | 23 see | obj |
| 25 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 28 frightened | punct |
| 26 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 28 frightened | nsubj:pass |
| 27 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 28 frightened | aux:pass |
| 28 | frightened | frighten | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 13 looked | parataxis |
| 29 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 31 told | punct |
| 30 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 31 told | cc |
| 31 | told | tell | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 looked | conj |
| 32 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 33 wife | nmod:poss |
| 33 | wife | wife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 31 told | iobj |
| 34 | to | to | PART | _ | 35 pick | mark |
| 35 | pick | pick | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 31 told | xcomp |
| 36 | up | up | ADP | _ | 35 pick | compound:prt |
| 37 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 38 load | nmod:poss |
| 38 | load | load | NOUN | Number=Sing | 35 pick | obj |
| 39 | at | at | ADP | _ | 40 once | case |
| 40 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 35 pick | obl |
| 41 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 13 looked | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | hear | past | Agbor | the familiar voice of the bird | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer voice=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | look round | past | AGBOR | everywhere property | vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | ||||
| 3 | not see | could | AGBOR | Aictor | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer aictor=Stimulus | ||||
| 4 | frighten | past · passive | AGBOR | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: subject=Experiencer | |||||
| 5 | tell speech: assert | past | AGBOR not said here | AGBOR's wife | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent wife=Recipient clause=Topic | ||||
| 6 | pick up not said to happen | to-infinitive | AGBOR not said here | wife's load | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent load=Topic |
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/pg70959/25/69/