---
title: The bites of the driver ants made the child cry. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: The bites of the driver ants made the child cry. Who acts: bites, child. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, E. Dayrell., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, E. Dayrell., sentence 15

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The bites of the driver ants made the child cry.

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**Who acts:** bites, child · **What happens:** make, cry, bite · **To what, where:** child, driver ants

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This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, E. Dayrell.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bites, child), 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:pg70959:3:15
# text = The bites of the driver ants made the child cry.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	bites	bite	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	driver	driver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	ants	ant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
7	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past | the bites of the driver ants | the child |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* | infinitive | the child *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **bite** |  |  | the driver ants |  |  |  |  | nom bite «state transitive»: of=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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