Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of His Sons But Failed., sentence 15
The boys then went back to their different houses and told their mothers what the chief had said.
Who acts: boys, chief · What happens: go back, tell, say · To what, where: mothers · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of His Sons But Failed.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boys, 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 | 2 boys | det |
| 2 | boys | boy | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 went | nsubj |
| 3 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 4 went | advmod |
| 4 | went | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | back | back | ADV | _ | 4 went | advmod |
| 6 | to | to | ADP | _ | 9 houses | case |
| 7 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 9 houses | nmod:poss |
| 8 | different | different | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 houses | amod |
| 9 | houses | house | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 went | obl |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 told | cc |
| 11 | told | tell | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 went | conj |
| 12 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 13 mothers | nmod:poss |
| 13 | mothers | mother | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 told | iobj |
| 14 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 18 said | obj |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 chief | det |
| 16 | chief | chief | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 said | nsubj |
| 17 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 said | aux |
| 18 | said | say | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 11 told | ccomp |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 went | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | go back | past | the boys | then | to degrees's different houses result | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Patient to house=Result | |||
| 2 | tell speech: assert | past | the boys not said here | degrees's mothers | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP what S»: agent=Agent mother=Recipient clause=Topic | ||||
| 3 | say speech: assert | past · perfect | the chief | what obj | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
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/pg70959/8/15/