---
title: That night he got a rope and hanged himself on the branch of a tree… — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: That night he got a rope and hanged himself on the branch of a tree overhanging his father’s grave. Who acts: Eyu, tree. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 4, with its dependency tree and the prag
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/21/6/)

<!-- 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/) / [Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Change…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/21/) / 6

# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 4, sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
That night he got a rope and hanged himself on the branch of a tree overhanging his father’s grave.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Eyu, tree · **What happens:** get, hange, overhang · **To what, where:** rope, Eyu, branch, grave

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Eyu, tree), 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:pg70959:21:6
# text = That night he got a rope and hanged himself on the branch of a tree overhanging his father’s grave.
1	That	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	rope	rope	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	hanged	hange	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	8	obj	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	branch	branch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	_
16	overhanging	overhang	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	’s	's	PART	POS	_	18	case	_	_
20	grave	grave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | Eyu | a rope |  |  | night |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer rope=Stimulus |
| 2 | **hange** | past | Eyu *not said here* | Eyu |  | the branch of a tree |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **overhang** | gerund | a tree *not said here* | Eyu's father's grave |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme grave=Co-Theme |

<!-- .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 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/21/5/)
- next →: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/21/7/)
- ↑ back to [Xxv.--how Two Bendega Young Men Changed Their Skins., part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/21/)