---
title: Ode did so, but failed to find the goat. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: Ode did so, but failed to find the goat. Who acts: Ode. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxxi.--chief Kekong’s Daughter ’ndere Who Married a Python., part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xxxi.--chief Kekong’s Daughter ’ndere Who Married a Python., part 3, sentence 39

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Ode did so, but failed to find the goat.

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**Who acts:** Ode · **What happens:** do, fail, not find · **To what, where:** goat

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This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xxxi.--chief Kekong’s Daughter ’ndere Who Married a Python., part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ode), 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:pg70959:26:39
# text = Ode did so, but failed to find the goat.
1	Ode	Ode	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	so	so	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	goat	goat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | Ode |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **fail** | past | Ode *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **not** **find** | to-infinitive | Ode *not said here* | the goat |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent goat=Topic |

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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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