---
title: So he flew from town to town, taking chickens from every compound. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: So he flew from town to town, taking chickens from every compound. Who acts: HAWK. 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 51

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So he flew from town to town, taking chickens from every compound.

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**Who acts:** HAWK · **What happens:** fly, take · **To what, where:** town, chickens, compound

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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 (HAWK), 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:pg70959:3:51
# text = So he flew from town to town, taking chickens from every compound.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	from	from	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	town	town	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	taking	take	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
10	chickens	chicken	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
11	from	from	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	13	det	_	_
13	compound	compound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fly** | past | HAWK |  |  | town |  | to town | vn drive-11.5-1 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location PP.destination»: agent=Agent from town=Initial\_Location to town=Destination |
| 2 | **take** | gerund | HAWK *not said here* | chickens |  | every compound |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent chicken=Theme from compound=Initial\_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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