Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, E. Dayrell., sentence 32

Now, the porcupine was a lot caster, and when he had cast lots he decided that the best thing that Awu could do was to go to a house and lie down, pretending to be dead.

Who acts: porcupine, Awu, best thing · What happens: be, cast, decide, do, lie down, pretend · To what, where: lot caster, lots, best thing · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, E. Dayrell.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (porcupine, Awu, best thing), 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	Now	now	ADV	PronType=Dem	8 caster	advmod
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	1 Now	punct
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 porcupine	det
4	porcupine	porcupine	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 caster	nsubj
5	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 caster	cop
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	8 caster	det
7	lot	lot	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 caster	compound
8	caster	caster	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 decided	punct
10	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 decided	cc
11	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	14 cast	advmod
12	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	14 cast	nsubj
13	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	14 cast	aux
14	cast	cast	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	17 decided	advcl
15	lots	lot	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 cast	obj
16	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 decided	nsubj
17	decided	decide	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 caster	conj
18	that	that	SCONJ	_	28 go	mark
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	21 thing	det
20	best	good	ADJ	Degree=Sup	21 thing	amod
21	thing	thing	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 go	nsubj:outer
22	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	25 do	obj
23	Awu	Awu	PROPN	Number=Sing	25 do	nsubj
24	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	25 do	aux
25	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 thing	acl:relcl
26	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	28 go	cop
27	to	to	PART	_	28 go	mark
28	go	go	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	17 decided	ccomp
29	to	to	ADP	_	31 house	case
30	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	31 house	det
31	house	house	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 go	obl
32	and	and	CCONJ	_	33 lie	cc
33	lie	lie	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	28 go	conj
34	down	down	ADP	_	33 lie	compound:prt
35	,	,	PUNCT	_	36 pretending	punct
36	pretending	pretend	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	33 lie	advcl
37	to	to	PART	_	39 dead	mark
38	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	39 dead	cop
39	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	36 pretending	xcomp
40	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 caster	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	is a	past	the porcupine	a lot caster	now		tree rules
2	cast	past · perfect	porcupine	lots			vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lot=Product
3	decide	past	porcupine				vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	do	could	Awu	the best thing			vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent that=Eventuality
5	is not said to happen	past	the best thing			to a house; go property	tree rules
6	lie down	infinitive	the best thing not said here				vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
7	pretend	gerund	the best thing not said here				tree rules
8	is	to-infinitive	the best thing not said here			dead property	tree rules

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/pg70959/3/32/

🌲 Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, E. Dayrell., sentence 32

The tree

Pragmatics

Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, E. Dayrell., sentence 32