---
title: One of the station labourers who knew a little English, said: “Poor… — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: One of the station labourers who knew a little English, said: “Poor Okuni.” Who acts: station labourers. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Opening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/1/86/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/) / [Opening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/1/) / 86

# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Opening, sentence 86

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
One of the station labourers who knew a little English, said: “Poor Okuni.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** station labourers · **What happens:** know, say · **To what, where:** little English · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Opening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (station labourers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg70959:1:86
# text = One of the station labourers who knew a little English, said: “Poor Okuni.”
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	ccomp	_	_
2	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	station	station	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	_
5	labourers	labourer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	nmod	_	_
6	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
7	knew	know	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	acl:relcl	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	English	English	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
14	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	Poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	Okuni	Okuni	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** | past | the station labourers | a little English |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer english=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past |  |  |  |  |  | One of the station labourers *ccomp*; Poor Okuni *ccomp* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 85](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/1/85/)
- next →: [sentence 87](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/1/87/)
- ↑ back to [Opening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/1/)