---
title: THE CHIEF ALWAYS SAT WITH HIS FEET ON THE SKULLS. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: THE CHIEF ALWAYS SAT WITH HIS FEET ON THE SKULLS. Who acts: CHIEF. 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 3

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THE CHIEF ALWAYS SAT WITH HIS FEET ON THE SKULLS.

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**Who acts:** CHIEF · **What happens:** sit · **To what, where:** SKULLS

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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 (CHIEF), 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:pg70959:29:3
# text = THE CHIEF ALWAYS SAT WITH HIS FEET ON THE SKULLS.
1	THE	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	CHIEF	chief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	ALWAYS	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	4	advmod	_	_
4	SAT	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	WITH	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	HIS	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	FEET	feet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
8	ON	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	THE	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	SKULLS	skull	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | the CHIEF |  |  | the SKULLS |  | with CHIEF's FEET; always *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on skull=Location |

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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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