---
title: He then told his wives to sleep in their own houses as he was ill. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: He then told his wives to sleep in their own houses as he was ill. 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 dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/8/70/)

<!-- 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/) / 70

# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of His Sons But Failed., sentence 70

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He then told his wives to sleep in their own houses as he was ill.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** leopard · **What happens:** tell, sleep, be · **To what, where:** wives, own houses · **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:pg70959:8:70
# text = He then told his wives to sleep in their own houses as he was ill.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	3	advmod	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	wives	wife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	iobj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	sleep	sleep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	own	own	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	houses	house	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	15	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
15	ill	ill	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | leopard |  | leopard's wives |  | then |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent wife=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **sleep** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | leopard *not said here* |  |  | wives's own houses |  |  | vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent in house=Location |
| 3 | **is** | past | leopard |  |  |  |  | ill *property* | tree rules |

<!-- .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 69](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/8/69/)
- next →: [sentence 71](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg70959/8/71/)
- ↑ 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/)