Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Demane and Demazana., sentence 17
He was afraid to tell what his desire was, lest the other cannibal should want a share of the girl.
Who acts: smelt, desire, other cannibal · What happens: be, tell, want, desire, share · To what, where: share, girl · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Demane and Demazana.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (smelt, desire, other cannibal), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 afraid | nsubj |
| 2 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 afraid | cop |
| 3 | afraid | afraid | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 4 | to | to | PART | _ | 5 tell | mark |
| 5 | tell | tell | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 afraid | xcomp |
| 6 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 5 tell | ccomp |
| 7 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 desire | nmod:poss |
| 8 | desire | desire | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 what | nsubj |
| 9 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 what | cop |
| 10 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 16 want | punct |
| 11 | lest | lest | SCONJ | _ | 16 want | mark |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 cannibal | det |
| 13 | other | other | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 cannibal | amod |
| 14 | cannibal | cannibal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 want | nsubj |
| 15 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 16 want | aux |
| 16 | want | want | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 5 tell | conj |
| 17 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 18 share | det |
| 18 | share | share | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 want | obj |
| 19 | of | of | ADP | _ | 21 girl | case |
| 20 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 21 girl | det |
| 21 | girl | girl | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 share | nmod |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 afraid | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | smelt | afraid property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | tell speech: assert | to-infinitive | smelt not said here | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | is a | past | smelt's desire | tree rules | |||||
| 4 | want | should | the other cannibal | a share of the girl | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot share=Theme | ||||
| 5 | desire | smelt | nom desire «feeling transitive»: poss=agent | ||||||
| 6 | share | the girl | nom share «possession transitive»: of=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/pg71335/11/17/