Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 290

They saw the footprints of Hlakanyana, and said: “This is a little boy that is stealing our birds.”

Who acts: owners, This, little boy · What happens: see, say, be, steal · To what, where: footprints, little boy, birds · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (owners, This, little boy), 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	2 saw	nsubj
2	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 footprints	det
4	footprints	footprint	NOUN	Number=Plur	2 saw	obj
5	of	of	ADP	_	6 Hlakanyana	case
6	Hlakanyana	Hlakanyana	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 footprints	nmod
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 said	punct
8	and	and	CCONJ	_	9 said	cc
9	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 saw	conj
10	:	:	PUNCT	_	9 said	punct
11	“	"	PUNCT	_	16 boy	punct
12	This	this	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Dem	16 boy	nsubj
13	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	16 boy	cop
14	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	16 boy	det
15	little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 boy	amod
16	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 said	ccomp
17	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	19 stealing	nsubj
18	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	19 stealing	aux
19	stealing	steal	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	16 boy	acl:relcl
20	our	our	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	21 birds	nmod:poss
21	birds	bird	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 stealing	obj
22	.	.	PUNCT	_	16 boy	punct
23	”	"	PUNCT	_	16 boy	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	see	past	owners = owner	the footprints of Hlakanyana	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer footprint=Stimulus
2	say speech: assert	past	owners = owner not said here		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent
3	is a in a quote	present	This	a little boy	tree rules
4	steal in a quote	present · progressive	a little boy	our birds	vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bird=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/pg71335/10/290/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 290

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 290