Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xii.--concerning the Okuni Witches and Cannibalism., sentence 4

Chief ’Ndabu was, however, not a happy man, as all the time he was young he never had a son who should inherit his property when he died.

Who acts: Ndabu, time, son · What happens: not be, be, not have, inherit, die · To what, where: happy man, son, property

This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xii.--concerning the Okuni Witches and Cannibalism.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ndabu, time, son), 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	Chief	Chief	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 Ndabu	nmod:poss
2	’	's	PART	_	1 Chief	case
3	Ndabu	Ndabu	PROPN	Number=Sing	11 man	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 man	cop
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 man	punct
6	however	however	ADV	_	11 man	advmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 man	punct
8	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	11 man	advmod
9	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 man	det
10	happy	happy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 man	amod
11	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	19 young	punct
13	as	as	SCONJ	_	19 young	mark
14	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	16 time	det:predet
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 time	det
16	time	time	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 young	nsubj
17	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	19 young	nsubj
18	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 young	cop
19	young	young	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 man	conj
20	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	22 had	nsubj
21	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	22 had	advmod
22	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 young	parataxis
23	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	24 son	det
24	son	son	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 had	obj
25	who	who	PRON	PronType=Rel	27 inherit	nsubj
26	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	27 inherit	aux
27	inherit	inherit	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	24 son	acl:relcl
28	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	29 property	nmod:poss
29	property	property	NOUN	Number=Sing	27 inherit	obj
30	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	32 died	advmod
31	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 died	nsubj
32	died	die	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 inherit	advcl
33	.	.	PUNCT	_	11 man	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	not is a	past	Chief's Ndabu	a happy man	however property	tree rules
2	is	past	all time		Ndabu nsubj; young property	tree rules
3	not have	past	Ndabu	a son		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient
4	inherit	should	a son	Ndabu's property		vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent property=Theme
5	die	past	Ndabu			vn calibratable_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute

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/pg70959/9/4/

🌲 Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xii.--concerning the Okuni Witches and Cannibalism., sentence 4

The tree

Pragmatics

Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xii.--concerning the Okuni Witches and Cannibalism., sentence 4