Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 54
They said: “How can such a thing as you are carry meat?”
Who acts: men, you · What happens: say, carry · To what, where: meat · 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 (men, you), 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 said | nsubj |
| 2 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 2 said | punct |
| 4 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 9 thing | punct |
| 5 | How | how | ADV | PronType=Int | 6 can | advmod |
| 6 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 9 thing | aux |
| 7 | such | such | DET | PronType=Ind | 9 thing | det:predet |
| 8 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 9 thing | det |
| 9 | thing | thing | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 said | ccomp |
| 10 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 13 carry | mark |
| 11 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 13 carry | nsubj |
| 12 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 13 carry | aux |
| 13 | carry | carry | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 9 thing | advcl |
| 14 | meat | meat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 carry | obj |
| 15 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 9 thing | punct |
| 16 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 9 thing | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: ask | past | men = man | such thing ccomp | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | carry in a quote | present | you | meat | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent 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.
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