---
title: Long ago the spider and the grasshopper were good friends. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: Long ago the spider and the grasshopper were good friends. Who acts: spider. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Vii.--how Two Friends Fell Out: the Spider and the Grasshopper., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Vii.--how Two Friends Fell Out: the Spider and the Grasshopper., sentence 1

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Long ago the spider and the grasshopper were good friends.

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**Who acts:** spider · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** good friends

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This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Vii.--how Two Friends Fell Out: the Spider and the Grasshopper.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (spider), 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:pg70959:6:1
# text = Long ago the spider and the grasshopper were good friends.
1	Long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	2	advmod	_	_
2	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	spider	spider	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	grasshopper	grasshopper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	friends	friend	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | the spider and the grasshopper | good friends |  |  |  | ago *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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