Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of His Sons But Failed., sentence 28
He then went off 50 paces into the bush and gave the signal to start.
Who acts: Agbor · What happens: go off, give, start · To what, where: 50 paces, bush, signal
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 (Agbor), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 went | nsubj |
| 2 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 3 went | advmod |
| 3 | went | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | off | off | ADV | _ | 5 50 | advmod |
| 5 | 50 | 50 | NUM | NumForm=Digit NumType=Card | 6 paces | nummod |
| 6 | paces | pace | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 went | obj |
| 7 | into | into | ADP | _ | 9 bush | case |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 bush | det |
| 9 | bush | bush | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 went | obl |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 gave | cc |
| 11 | gave | give | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 went | conj |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 signal | det |
| 13 | signal | signal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 gave | obj |
| 14 | to | to | PART | _ | 15 start | mark |
| 15 | start | start | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 11 gave | advcl |
| 16 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 went | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | go off | past | Agbor | 50 paces | the bush | then | tree rules | ||
| 2 | give | past | Agbor not said here | the signal | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent signal=Theme | ||||
| 3 | start | to-infinitive | Agbor not said here | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
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/pg70959/8/28/