Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular, Opening, part 8, sentence 105

Eh lay er wager say nobody kin ax eh ole serbant er questun wuh him couldnt answer, an eh gie eh fren lief fuh try de ole man any fashion dem want.

Who acts: Eh, wager, fashion dem, er · What happens: lie, say, gie, want, wager · To what, where: nobody, eh · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular» by Charles C., Jr. Jones, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Eh, wager, fashion dem, er), 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	Eh	Eh	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 lay	nsubj
2	lay	lie	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	er	er	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	4 wager	nmod:poss
4	wager	wager	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 say	nsubj
5	say	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 lay	ccomp
6	nobody	nobody	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Neg	5 say	obj
7	kin	kin	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 ax	amod
8	ax	ax	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 nobody	conj
9	eh	eh	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 serbant	det
10	ole	ole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 serbant	amod
11	serbant	serbant	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 er	compound
12	er	er	PUNCT	_	21 gie	punct
13	questun	questun	X	Foreign=Yes	12 er	flat
14	wuh	wuh	INTJ	_	12 er	discourse
15	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 er	goeswith
16	couldnt	couldnt	ADJ	Degree=Pos	17 answer	amod
17	answer	answer	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 er	conj
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 gie	punct
19	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	20 eh	det
20	eh	eh	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 gie	nsubj
21	gie	gie	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 nobody	conj
22	eh	eh	X	Foreign=Yes	21 gie	obj
23	fren	fren	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 try	amod
24	lief	lief	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 try	amod
25	fuh	fuh	ADJ	Degree=Pos	26 try	amod
26	try	try	NOUN	Number=Sing	22 eh	appos
27	de	de	X	Foreign=Yes	26 try	flat:foreign
28	ole	ole	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 man	amod
29	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 try	appos
30	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	32 dem	det
31	fashion	fashion	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 dem	compound
32	dem	dem	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 man	appos
33	want	want	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	32 dem	acl:relcl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 lay	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	lie	past	Eh			tree rules
2	say speech: assert	present	er's wager	nobody kin ax		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent nobody=Topic
3	gie	infinitive	a eh	eh	eh ole serbant compound; wager goeswith; couldnt answer conj	tree rules
4	want	present	any fashion dem not said here			vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Pivot
5	wager		er			nom wager «act 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: «Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular» by Charles C., Jr. Jones, Project Gutenberg book 76586 (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/pg76586/8/105/

🌲 Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular, Opening, part 8, sentence 105

The tree

Pragmatics

Negro myths from the Georgia coast, told in the vernacular, Opening, part 8, sentence 105