Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 16

When the girls reached home, they told the chief that his daughter had reached the age of ntonjane, and they selected one of themselves and shut her up in a hut.

Who acts: girls, daughter · What happens: reach, tell, select, shut up · To what, where: chief, age, one, bird, hut · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (girls, daughter), 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	When	when	SCONJ	_	4 reached	mark
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 girls	det
3	girls	girl	NOUN	Number=Plur	4 reached	nsubj
4	reached	reach	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 told	advcl
5	home	home	ADV	_	4 reached	advmod
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	4 reached	punct
7	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	8 told	nsubj
8	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 chief	det
10	chief	chief	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 told	obj
11	that	that	SCONJ	_	15 reached	mark
12	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	13 daughter	nmod:poss
13	daughter	daughter	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 reached	nsubj
14	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	15 reached	aux
15	reached	reach	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	10 chief	acl:relcl
16	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	17 age	det
17	age	age	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 reached	obj
18	of	of	ADP	_	19 ntonjane	case
19	ntonjane	ntonjane	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 age	nmod
20	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 selected	punct
21	and	and	CCONJ	_	23 selected	cc
22	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	23 selected	nsubj
23	selected	select	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 told	conj
24	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	23 selected	obj
25	of	of	ADP	_	26 themselves	case
26	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	24 one	nmod
27	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 shut	cc
28	shut	shut	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	23 selected	conj
29	her	she	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	28 shut	obj
30	up	up	ADP	_	28 shut	compound:prt
31	in	in	ADP	_	33 hut	case
32	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	33 hut	det
33	hut	hut	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 shut	obl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	8 told	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	reach	past	the girls			home property	vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	tell speech: assert	past	girls = girl	the chief			vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent chief=Recipient
3	reach	past · perfect	cannibal's daughter	the age of ntonjane			vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent age=Theme
4	select	past	daughter	one of daughter			vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=Theme
5	shut up	past	daughter not said here	bird	a hut		vn subjugate-42.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=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/pg71335/14/16/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 16

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 16