Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Ii.--the Cunning Hare; Or, Why the Tortoise Has a Patched Shell., sentence 98
Then they opened the basket together, and, to the chief’s intense surprise and joy, he saw a fat little baby boy lying smiling in the bottom of the basket, half covered with mushrooms.
Who acts: sacrifices, husband, fat little baby boy, chief · What happens: open, see, lie, smile, cover, surprise · To what, where: basket, fat little baby boy
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 (sacrifices, husband, fat little baby boy, chief), 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 | Then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 3 opened | advmod |
| 2 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 opened | nsubj |
| 3 | opened | open | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 basket | det |
| 5 | basket | basket | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 opened | obj |
| 6 | together | together | ADV | _ | 3 opened | advmod |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 saw | punct |
| 8 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 20 saw | cc |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 8 and | punct |
| 10 | to | to | ADP | _ | 15 surprise | case |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 chief | det |
| 12 | chief | chief | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 surprise | nmod:poss |
| 13 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 12 chief | case |
| 14 | intense | intense | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 15 surprise | amod |
| 15 | surprise | surprise | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 saw | obl |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 17 joy | cc |
| 17 | joy | joy | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 surprise | conj |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 surprise | punct |
| 19 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 20 saw | nsubj |
| 20 | saw | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 opened | parataxis |
| 21 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 25 boy | det |
| 22 | fat | fat | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 25 boy | amod |
| 23 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 25 boy | amod |
| 24 | baby | baby | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 boy | compound |
| 25 | boy | boy | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 saw | obj |
| 26 | lying | lie | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 25 boy | acl |
| 27 | smiling | smile | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 26 lying | advcl |
| 28 | in | in | ADP | _ | 30 bottom | case |
| 29 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 30 bottom | det |
| 30 | bottom | bottom | NOUN | Number=Sing | 27 smiling | obl |
| 31 | of | of | ADP | _ | 33 basket | case |
| 32 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 33 basket | det |
| 33 | basket | basket | NOUN | Number=Sing | 30 bottom | nmod |
| 34 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 36 covered | punct |
| 35 | half | half | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Frac | 36 covered | advmod |
| 36 | covered | cover | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 20 saw | conj |
| 37 | with | with | ADP | _ | 38 mushrooms | case |
| 38 | mushrooms | mushroom | NOUN | Number=Plur | 36 covered | obl |
| 39 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 opened | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | open | past | sacrifices = sacrifice | the basket | then | together property | vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location basket=Theme | ||
| 2 | see | past | husband | a fat little baby boy | to the chief's intense surprise and joy | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer boy=Stimulus | |||
| 3 | lie | gerund | a fat little baby boy not said here | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 4 | smile | gerund | a fat little baby boy not said here | in the bottom of the basket | vn nonverbal_expression-40.2 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in bottom=Theme | ||||
| 5 | cover | participle | husband not said here | with mushrooms; half property | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent with mushroom=Theme | ||||
| 6 | surprise | the chief | nom surprise «feeling transitive»: poss=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/pg70959/4/98/