---
title: He got no reply, but thought he heard a laugh somewhere. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: He got no reply, but thought he heard a laugh somewhere. Who acts: rubber. 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 53

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He got no reply, but thought he heard a laugh somewhere.

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**Who acts:** rubber · **What happens:** get, think, hear · **To what, where:** reply, laugh · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (rubber), 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:pg70959:4:53
# text = He got no reply, but thought he heard a laugh somewhere.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	reply	reply	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	laugh	laugh	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	somewhere	somewhere	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** | past | rubber | no reply |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer reply=Stimulus |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | rubber *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **hear** | past | rubber | a laugh |  |  |  | somewhere *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer laugh=Stimulus |

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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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