Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxxi.--chief Kekong’s Daughter ’ndere Who Married a Python., part 3, sentence 36
It was late when Ode came back to the house, and he told his sister that he was sorry he could not fill the basket with water.
Who acts: river, Ode, BROTHER · What happens: be, come back, tell, not fill · To what, where: sister, basket · 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 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (river, Ode, BROTHER), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 late | nsubj |
| 2 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 late | cop |
| 3 | late | late | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 4 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 6 came | advmod |
| 5 | Ode | Ode | PROPN | Number=Sing | 6 came | nsubj |
| 6 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 late | advcl |
| 7 | back | back | ADV | _ | 6 came | advmod |
| 8 | to | to | ADP | _ | 10 house | case |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 house | det |
| 10 | house | house | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 back | obl |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 told | punct |
| 12 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 14 told | cc |
| 13 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 told | nsubj |
| 14 | told | tell | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 late | conj |
| 15 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 16 sister | nmod:poss |
| 16 | sister | sister | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 told | iobj |
| 17 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 20 sorry | mark |
| 18 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 20 sorry | nsubj |
| 19 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 20 sorry | cop |
| 20 | sorry | sorry | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 told | ccomp |
| 21 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 24 fill | nsubj |
| 22 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 24 fill | aux |
| 23 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 24 fill | advmod |
| 24 | fill | fill | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 20 sorry | ccomp |
| 25 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 26 basket | det |
| 26 | basket | basket | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 fill | obj |
| 27 | with | with | ADP | _ | 28 water | case |
| 28 | water | water | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 fill | obl |
| 29 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 late | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | river | late property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | come back | past | Ode | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 3 | tell speech: assert | past | BROTHER | BROTHER's sister | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent sister=Recipient | ||||
| 4 | is | past | BROTHER | sorry property | tree rules | ||||
| 5 | not fill | could | BROTHER | the basket | with water | vn other_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent basket=Patient with water=Instrument |
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/pg70959/26/36/