Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Vii.--how Two Friends Fell Out: the Spider and the Grasshopper., sentence 110
The slave woman was then seized, and tied up to a tree, and, when the morning came, the chief charged her with trying to kill her mistress.
Who acts: morning, chief · What happens: seize, tie up, come, charge, try, kill · To what, where: slave woman, woman, mistress
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Vii.--how Two Friends Fell Out: the Spider and the Grasshopper.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (morning, 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 woman | det |
| 2 | slave | slave | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 woman | compound |
| 3 | woman | woman | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 seized | nsubj:pass |
| 4 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 seized | aux:pass |
| 5 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 6 seized | advmod |
| 6 | seized | seize | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 tied | punct |
| 8 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 9 tied | cc |
| 9 | tied | tie | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 6 seized | conj |
| 10 | up | up | ADP | _ | 9 tied | compound:prt |
| 11 | to | to | ADP | _ | 13 tree | case |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 13 tree | det |
| 13 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 tied | obl |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 charged | punct |
| 15 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 24 charged | cc |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 and | punct |
| 17 | when | when | SCONJ | _ | 20 came | mark |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 morning | det |
| 19 | morning | morning | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 came | nsubj |
| 20 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 24 charged | advcl |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 came | punct |
| 22 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 23 chief | det |
| 23 | chief | chief | NOUN | Number=Sing | 24 charged | nsubj |
| 24 | charged | charge | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 seized | conj |
| 25 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 24 charged | iobj |
| 26 | with | with | SCONJ | _ | 27 trying | mark |
| 27 | trying | try | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 24 charged | advcl |
| 28 | to | to | PART | _ | 29 kill | mark |
| 29 | kill | kill | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 27 trying | xcomp |
| 30 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 31 mistress | nmod:poss |
| 31 | mistress | mistress | NOUN | Number=Sing | 29 kill | obj |
| 32 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 seized | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | seize | past · passive | the slave woman | then | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme | ||||
| 2 | tie up | participle | to a tree | vn mix-22.1-2 «NP V ADVP-Middle PP»: agent=Patient to tree=Co-Patient | |||||
| 3 | come | past | the morning | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 4 | charge | past | the chief | woman | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial_Location she=Theme | ||||
| 5 | try | gerund | the chief not said here | vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 6 | kill not said to happen | to-infinitive | the chief not said here | woman's mistress | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mistress=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/pg70959/6/110/