Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Vii.--how Two Friends Fell Out: the Spider and the Grasshopper., sentence 23
The grasshopper longed to eat the food, but did not see how he could manage it, as he was known as Dabi, and his name was never called.
Who acts: grasshopper · What happens: long, eat, not see, manage, know, not call · To what, where: food, grasshopper, name · Speech: someone speaks here
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 (grasshopper), 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 | 2 grasshopper | det |
| 2 | grasshopper | grasshopper | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 longed | nsubj |
| 3 | longed | long | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | to | to | PART | _ | 5 eat | mark |
| 5 | eat | eat | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 longed | xcomp |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 7 food | det |
| 7 | food | food | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 eat | obj |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 see | punct |
| 9 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 12 see | cc |
| 10 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 see | aux |
| 11 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 12 see | advmod |
| 12 | see | see | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 longed | conj |
| 13 | how | how | ADV | PronType=Int | 16 manage | advmod |
| 14 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 manage | nsubj |
| 15 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 16 manage | aux |
| 16 | manage | manage | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 see | ccomp |
| 17 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 manage | obj |
| 18 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 known | punct |
| 19 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 22 known | mark |
| 20 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 22 known | nsubj:pass |
| 21 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 22 known | aux:pass |
| 22 | known | know | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 16 manage | parataxis |
| 23 | as | as | ADP | _ | 24 Dabi | case |
| 24 | Dabi | Dabi | PROPN | Number=Sing | 22 known | obl |
| 25 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 31 called | punct |
| 26 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 31 called | cc |
| 27 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 28 name | nmod:poss |
| 28 | name | name | NOUN | Number=Sing | 31 called | nsubj:pass |
| 29 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 31 called | aux:pass |
| 30 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 31 called | advmod |
| 31 | called | call | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 3 longed | parataxis |
| 32 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 longed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | long | past | the grasshopper | vn long-32.2 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme | |||||
| 2 | eat not said to happen | to-infinitive | the grasshopper not said here | the food | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent food=Patient | ||||
| 3 | not see | past · do-support | the grasshopper not said here | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus | |||||
| 4 | manage | could | grasshopper | food | vn caring-75.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme | ||||
| 5 | know | past · passive | grasshopper | as Dabi | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: subject=Stimulus as dabi=Attribute | ||||
| 6 | not call | past · passive | grasshopper's name | vn initiate_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient | |||||
| 7 | name | grasshopper | nom name «communication 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/pg70959/6/23/