Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 326

The hyena tried to frighten him by saying there were many hyenas coming quickly to devour him.

Who acts: hyena, many hyenas · What happens: try, frighten, say, be, come, devour · To what, where: Hlakanyana · 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 (hyena, many hyenas), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 hyena	det
2	hyena	hyena	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 tried	nsubj
3	tried	try	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 frighten	mark
5	frighten	frighten	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 tried	xcomp
6	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 frighten	obj
7	by	by	SCONJ	_	8 saying	mark
8	saying	say	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 frighten	advcl
9	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	10 were	expl
10	were	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 saying	ccomp
11	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	12 hyenas	amod
12	hyenas	hyena	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 were	nsubj
13	coming	come	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	12 hyenas	acl
14	quickly	quickly	ADV	_	13 coming	advmod
15	to	to	PART	_	16 devour	mark
16	devour	devour	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	13 coming	advcl
17	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 devour	obj
18	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 tried	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	try	past	the hyena				vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	frighten not said to happen	to-infinitive	the hyena not said here	Hlakanyana			vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus he=Experiencer
3	say speech: assert	gerund	the hyena not said here				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
4	be	past	many hyenas		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	come	gerund	many hyenas not said here			quickly property	vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	devour	to-infinitive	many hyenas not said here	Hlakanyana			vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient

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/pg71335/10/326/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 326

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 326