---
title: A man with a sharp knife then cut off Agbor’s left hand. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: A man with a sharp knife then cut off Agbor’s left hand. Who acts: man. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xiv.--the Fate of Agbor the Hunter, Who Killed His Wife and Children., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xiv.--the Fate of Agbor the Hunter, Who Killed His Wife and Children., sentence 30

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A man with a sharp knife then cut off Agbor’s left hand.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** cut off, leave · **To what, where:** left hand

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This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xiv.--the Fate of Agbor the Hunter, Who Killed His Wife and Children.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg70959:11:30
# text = A man with a sharp knife then cut off Agbor’s left hand.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
7	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	8	advmod	_	_
8	cut	cut	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	off	off	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	Agbor	Agbor	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	’s	's	PART	POS	_	10	case	_	_
12	left	leave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	13	amod	_	_
13	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut off** | past | a man with a sharp knife | Agbor's left hand |  |  | then |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector hand=Eventuality |
| 2 | **leave** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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.

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**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.

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