Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 15

But he would never open the bag so that any one could see what sort of a bird he had.

Who acts: cannibal, one · What happens: not open, see, have, sort · To what, where: bag, sort, bird

This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cannibal, one), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	5 open	cc
2	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 open	nsubj
3	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	5 open	aux
4	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	5 open	advmod
5	open	open	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
6	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	7 bag	det
7	bag	bag	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 open	obj
8	so	so	SCONJ	ExtPos=SCONJ	13 see	mark
9	that	that	SCONJ	_	8 so	fixed
10	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	11 one	det
11	one	one	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 see	nsubj
12	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	13 see	aux
13	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 open	advcl
14	what	what	DET	PronType=Int	15 sort	det
15	sort	sort	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 see	obj
16	of	of	ADP	_	18 bird	case
17	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	18 bird	det
18	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 sort	nmod
19	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	20 had	nsubj
20	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	18 bird	acl:relcl
21	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 open	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	not open	would	cannibal	the bag	vn spatial_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bag=Theme
2	see	could	any one	what sort of a bird	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer sort=Stimulus
3	have	past	cannibal	a bird not said here	vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=Patient
4	sort			a bird	nom sort «cognition 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/pg71335/14/15/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 15

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 15