Kaffir folk-lore, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather., sentence 34

They heard their aunt say, “Axe, be sharp; axe, be sharp;” and to let her know that they were awake, they spoke of vermin biting them.

Who acts: children, aunt, Axe, vermin · What happens: hear, say, be, let, know, speak · To what, where: Axe, aunt, children · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (children, aunt, Axe, vermin), 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 heard	nsubj
2	heard	hear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	4 aunt	nmod:poss
4	aunt	aunt	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 say	nsubj
5	say	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	2 heard	ccomp
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 Axe	punct
7	“	"	PUNCT	_	8 Axe	punct
8	Axe	axe	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 say	obj
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 sharp	punct
10	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	11 sharp	cop
11	sharp	sharp	ADJ	Degree=Pos	8 Axe	acl:relcl
12	;	;	PUNCT	_	13 axe	punct
13	axe	axe	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 sharp	conj
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 sharp	punct
15	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	16 sharp	cop
16	sharp	sharp	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 say	parataxis
17	;	;	PUNCT	_	16 sharp	punct
18	”	"	PUNCT	_	16 sharp	punct
19	and	and	CCONJ	_	21 let	cc
20	to	to	PART	_	21 let	mark
21	let	let	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 sharp	conj
22	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 let	obj
23	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 let	xcomp
24	that	that	SCONJ	_	27 awake	mark
25	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 awake	nsubj
26	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 awake	cop
27	awake	awake	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 know	ccomp
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 spoke	punct
29	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	30 spoke	nsubj
30	spoke	speak	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 heard	parataxis
31	of	of	ADP	_	32 vermin	case
32	vermin	vermin	NOUN	Number=Plur	30 spoke	obl
33	biting	bite	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	32 vermin	acl
34	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	33 biting	obj
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 heard	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	hear	past	children = child			vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
2	say speech: assert	present	children's aunt	Axe		tree rules
3	is in a quote	infinitive	Axe not said here		axe conj; sharp property	tree rules
4	is in a quote	infinitive			sharp property	tree rules
5	let	to-infinitive		aunt		tree rules
6	know	infinitive	aunt not said here			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
7	is	past	children = child		awake property	tree rules
8	speak speech: other	past	children = child		of vermin	vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent
9	bite	gerund	vermin not said here	children = child		vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=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/pg71335/12/34/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather., sentence 34

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather., sentence 34