---
title: He tried his hardest to get his hand away, but without success. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: He tried his hardest to get his hand away, but without success. Who acts: tortoise. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Ii.--the Cunning Hare; Or, Why the Tortoise Has a Patched Shell., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Ii.--the Cunning Hare; Or, Why the Tortoise Has a Patched Shell., sentence 49

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He tried his hardest to get his hand away, but without success.

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**Who acts:** tortoise · **What happens:** try, get away · **To what, where:** hardest, hand

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This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Ii.--the Cunning Hare; Or, Why the Tortoise Has a Patched Shell.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tortoise), 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:pg70959:4:49
# text = He tried his hardest to get his hand away, but without success.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	hardest	hard	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	2	obj	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	hand	hand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	away	away	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	without	without	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	success	success	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | tortoise | tortoise's hardest |  |  |  | success *parataxis* | vn try-61.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hard=Eventuality |
| 2 | **get away** | to-infinitive | tortoise *not said here* | tortoise's hand |  |  |  | away *property* | tree rules |

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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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