Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Ii.--the Cunning Hare; Or, Why the Tortoise Has a Patched Shell., sentence 16
The bush cat told the people what had happened, and that he had nothing to do with the matter.
Who acts: bush cat, people, cat · What happens: tell, happen, have, do · To what, where: people, nothing · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Ii.--the Cunning Hare; Or, Why the Tortoise Has a Patched Shell.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bush cat, people, cat), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 cat | det |
| 2 | bush | bush | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 cat | compound |
| 3 | cat | cat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 told | nsubj |
| 4 | told | tell | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 6 people | det |
| 6 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 told | iobj |
| 7 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 9 happened | nsubj |
| 8 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 happened | aux |
| 9 | happened | happen | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 6 people | acl:relcl |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 had | punct |
| 11 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 14 had | cc |
| 12 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 14 had | mark |
| 13 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 had | nsubj |
| 14 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 told | ccomp |
| 15 | nothing | nothing | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 14 had | obj |
| 16 | to | to | PART | _ | 17 do | mark |
| 17 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 nothing | acl |
| 18 | with | with | ADP | _ | 20 matter | case |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 matter | det |
| 20 | matter | matter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 do | obl |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 told | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | tell speech: assert | past | the bush cat | the people | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent people=Recipient clause=Topic | ||||
| 2 | happen | past · perfect | the people | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 3 | have | past | cat | nothing | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent nothing=Patient | ||||
| 4 | do | to-infinitive | cat not said here | nothing not said here | with the matter | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
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/pg70959/4/16/