Kaffir folk-lore, Story of Ironside and His Sister., sentence 16

They told the chief it would be dangerous to allow the child to grow up, because then a nation stronger than themselves might arise.

Who acts: cannibals, it, child · What happens: tell, be, allow, grow up, arise · To what, where: chief, child · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of Ironside and His Sister.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cannibals, it, child), 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 told	nsubj
2	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 chief	det
4	chief	chief	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 told	iobj
5	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 dangerous	nsubj
6	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	8 dangerous	aux
7	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	8 dangerous	cop
8	dangerous	dangerous	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 told	ccomp
9	to	to	PART	_	10 allow	mark
10	allow	allow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	8 dangerous	csubj
11	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	12 child	det
12	child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 allow	obj
13	to	to	PART	_	14 grow	mark
14	grow	grow	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	10 allow	xcomp
15	up	up	ADP	_	14 grow	compound:prt
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 stronger	punct
17	because	because	SCONJ	_	21 stronger	mark
18	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	20 nation	advmod
19	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	20 nation	det
20	nation	nation	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 stronger	obl:unmarked
21	stronger	strong	ADJ	Degree=Cmp	2 told	conj
22	than	than	SCONJ	_	25 arise	mark
23	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	25 arise	nsubj
24	might	might	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	25 arise	aux
25	arise	arise	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	21 stronger	advcl
26	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 told	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	other	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	past	cannibals = cannibal		the chief		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent chief=Recipient
2	is	would	it			dangerous property	tree rules
3	allow	to-infinitive		the child			vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP S»: agent=Causer child=Beneficiary clause=Eventuality
4	grow up not said to happen	to-infinitive	the child not said here				vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	arise	might	cannibals = cannibal				vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=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/pg71335/13/16/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, Story of Ironside and His Sister., sentence 16

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, Story of Ironside and His Sister., sentence 16