Kaffir folk-lore, Story of Ironside and His Sister., sentence 3
They carried her across a great river, and laid her gently down in a pumpkin field on a plain.
Who acts: birds · What happens: carry, lay down · To what, where: child, great river, pumpkin field
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 (birds), 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 carried | nsubj |
| 2 | carried | carry | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 carried | obj |
| 4 | across | across | ADP | _ | 7 river | case |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 river | det |
| 6 | great | great | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 river | amod |
| 7 | river | river | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 carried | obl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 laid | punct |
| 9 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 10 laid | cc |
| 10 | laid | lay | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 carried | conj |
| 11 | her | she | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 laid | obj |
| 12 | gently | gently | ADV | _ | 10 laid | advmod |
| 13 | down | down | ADV | _ | 10 laid | advmod |
| 14 | in | in | ADP | _ | 17 field | case |
| 15 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 17 field | det |
| 16 | pumpkin | pumpkin | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 field | compound |
| 17 | field | field | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 laid | obl |
| 18 | on | on | ADP | _ | 20 plain | case |
| 19 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 20 plain | det |
| 20 | plain | plain | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 laid | obl |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 carried | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | carry | past | birds = bird | child | a great river | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme | |||
| 2 | lay down | past | birds = bird not said here | child | a pumpkin field | on a plain; down, gently property | vn put_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent she=Theme in field=Destination |
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/pg71335/13/3/