---
title: About midnight the leopard brought fire and burnt the house down, th… — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: About midnight the leopard brought fire and burnt the house down, thinking that he had made certain of the boy this time. Who acts: leopard. A sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of His Sons But Failed., with its dependenc
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/8/61/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/) / [Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/8/) / 61

# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of His Sons But Failed., sentence 61

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
About midnight the leopard brought fire and burnt the house down, thinking that he had made certain of the boy this time.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** leopard · **What happens:** bring, burnt down, think, make · **To what, where:** fire, house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria» by Elphinstone Dayrell, Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of His Sons But Failed.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (leopard), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg70959:8:61
# text = About midnight the leopard brought fire and burnt the house down, thinking that he had made certain of the boy this time.
1	About	about	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	midnight	midnight	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	leopard	leopard	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	brought	bring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	burnt	burnt	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	down	down	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
13	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	17	mark	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
17	made	make	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	13	ccomp	_	_
18	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	_
22	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	23	det	_	_
23	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bring** | past | the leopard | fire |  |  | midnight |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent fire=Theme |
| 2 | **burnt down** | past | the leopard *not said here* | the house |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | the leopard *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 4 | **make** | past · perfect | leopard |  |  |  | time | certain *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 60](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/8/60/)
- next →: [sentence 62](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/8/62/)
- ↑ back to [Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of His Sons But Failed.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/8/)