Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Ii.--the Cunning Hare; Or, Why the Tortoise Has a Patched Shell., sentence 41
For some time it had seemed to him very curious that every night the meat should disappear and another animal should be killed.
Who acts: meat · What happens: have, seem, disappear, kill · To what, where: time, tortoise, animal
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 (meat), 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 | For | for | ADP | _ | 3 time | case |
| 2 | some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 3 time | det |
| 3 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 seemed | obl |
| 4 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 had | nsubj |
| 5 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 time | acl:relcl |
| 6 | seemed | seem | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 7 | to | to | ADP | _ | 8 him | case |
| 8 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 seemed | obl |
| 9 | very | very | ADV | _ | 10 curious | advmod |
| 10 | curious | curious | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 seemed | xcomp |
| 11 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 17 disappear | mark |
| 12 | every | every | DET | PronType=Tot | 13 night | det |
| 13 | night | night | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 disappear | obl:unmarked |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 meat | det |
| 15 | meat | meat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 disappear | nsubj |
| 16 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 17 disappear | aux |
| 17 | disappear | disappear | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 curious | advcl |
| 18 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 23 killed | cc |
| 19 | another | another | DET | PronType=Ind | 20 animal | det |
| 20 | animal | animal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 23 killed | nsubj:pass |
| 21 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 23 killed | aux |
| 22 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 23 killed | aux:pass |
| 23 | killed | kill | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 17 disappear | conj |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 seemed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | have | past | meat | some time not said here | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent time=Patient | ||||
| 2 | seem | past | tortoise | time | curious property | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Theme | |||
| 3 | disappear | should | the meat | night | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 4 | kill | should · passive | another animal | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: subject=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/pg70959/4/41/