---
title: The hare then got into the canoe and pushed off, and the iguana comm… — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: The hare then got into the canoe and pushed off, and the iguana commenced to paddle him over. Who acts: hare, iguana. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxii.--a Story of the Great Famine., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxii.--a Story of the Great Famine., sentence 43

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The hare then got into the canoe and pushed off, and the iguana commenced to paddle him over.

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**Who acts:** hare, iguana · **What happens:** get, push off, commence, paddle over · **To what, where:** canoe, iguana

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This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxii.--a Story of the Great Famine.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (hare, iguana), 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:pg70959:16:43
# text = The hare then got into the canoe and pushed off, and the iguana commenced to paddle him over.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	hare	hare	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
4	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	into	into	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	canoe	canoe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	pushed	push	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
10	off	off	ADP	RP	_	9	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	iguana	iguana	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	commenced	commence	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	paddle	paddle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	_
19	over	over	ADP	RP	_	17	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | the hare |  |  | the canoe | then |  | vn escape-51.1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme into canoe=Destination |
| 2 | **push off** | participle | the hare *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **commence** | past | the iguana |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 4 | **paddle over** | to-infinitive | the iguana *not said here* | iguana |  |  |  |  | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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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