Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 125
They were intending to kill the old man because he had stolen the meat of the chief.
Who acts: men, Hlakanyana · What happens: intend, kill, steal · To what, where: old man, meat
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Hlakanyana.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men, Hlakanyana), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.
Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.
The tree
The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)
| # | word | lemma | UPOS | features | head | relation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 intending | nsubj |
| 2 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 intending | aux |
| 3 | intending | intend | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | root | root |
| 4 | to | to | PART | _ | 5 kill | mark |
| 5 | kill | kill | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 intending | xcomp |
| 6 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 man | det |
| 7 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 8 man | amod |
| 8 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 kill | obj |
| 9 | because | because | SCONJ | _ | 12 stolen | mark |
| 10 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 stolen | nsubj |
| 11 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 stolen | aux |
| 12 | stolen | steal | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 5 kill | advcl |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 meat | det |
| 14 | meat | meat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 stolen | obj |
| 15 | of | of | ADP | _ | 17 chief | case |
| 16 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 chief | det |
| 17 | chief | chief | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 meat | nmod |
| 18 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 intending | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | intend | past · progressive | men = man | vn intend-61.2-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 2 | kill not said to happen | to-infinitive | men = man not said here | the old man | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Theme | ||||
| 3 | steal | past · perfect | Hlakanyana | the meat of the chief | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location meat=Theme |
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.
Text: «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Project Gutenberg book 71335 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/125/