---
title: They cannot be washed off by water. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: They cannot be washed off by water. Who acts: water. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Fig. 2.--chief Indoma’s Compound., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Fig. 2.--chief Indoma’s Compound., sentence 13

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They cannot be washed off by water.

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**Who acts:** water · **What happens:** not wash off · **To what, where:** marks

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This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Fig. 2.--chief Indoma’s Compound.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (water), 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:pg70959:29:13
# text = They cannot be washed off by water.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	washed	wash	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	off	off	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	by	by	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **wash off** | can · passive | water | marks *= mark* |  |  |  |  | vn floss-41.2.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Patient |

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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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