---
title: He shut his eyes and held his breath from time to time. — Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria · tree and pragmatics
description: He shut his eyes and held his breath from time to 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 dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ikom folk stories from Southern Nigeria, Xi.--how a Father Tried to Kill One of His Sons But Failed., sentence 72

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He shut his eyes and held his breath from time to time.

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**Who acts:** leopard · **What happens:** shut, hold · **To what, where:** eyes, breath

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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.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg70959:8:72
# text = He shut his eyes and held his breath from time to time.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	shut	shut	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	eyes	eye	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	held	hold	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	breath	breath	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	from	from	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
11	to	to	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	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 | **shut** | past | leopard | leopard's eyes |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent eye=Patient |
| 2 | **hold** | past | leopard *not said here* | leopard's breath |  |  | time |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent breath=Theme |

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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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