---
title: He never gathered any fruit, but returned home empty-handed. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: He never gathered any fruit, but returned home empty-handed. Who acts: Ogbaja. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xix.--why the Mist Rises From the Water., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xix.--why the Mist Rises From the Water., sentence 33

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He never gathered any fruit, but returned home empty-handed.

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**Who acts:** Ogbaja · **What happens:** not gather, return, hand · **To what, where:** fruit

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This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xix.--why the Mist Rises From the Water.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ogbaja), 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:pg70959:14:33
# text = He never gathered any fruit, but returned home empty-handed.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	gathered	gather	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	5	det	_	_
5	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	home	home	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
10	empty	empty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	handed	hand	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **gather** | past | Ogbaja | any fruit |  |  |  |  | vn deduce-97.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fruit=Theme |
| 2 | **return** | past | Ogbaja *not said here* |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **hand** | participle | Ogbaja *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

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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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