Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 17
The chief believed that story, and so he killed a large ox and said the people must eat.
Who acts: chief, people · What happens: believe, kill, say, eat · To what, where: story, large ox · 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 (chief, people), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 chief | det |
| 2 | chief | chief | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 believed | nsubj |
| 3 | believed | believe | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 5 story | mark |
| 5 | story | story | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 believed | obj |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 killed | punct |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 10 killed | cc |
| 8 | so | so | ADV | _ | 10 killed | advmod |
| 9 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 killed | nsubj |
| 10 | killed | kill | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 believed | parataxis |
| 11 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 13 ox | det |
| 12 | large | large | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 13 ox | amod |
| 13 | ox | ox | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 killed | obj |
| 14 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 15 said | cc |
| 15 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 killed | conj |
| 16 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 people | det |
| 17 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 19 eat | nsubj |
| 18 | must | must | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 19 eat | aux |
| 19 | eat | eat | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 said | ccomp |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 believed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | believe | past | the chief | story | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer story=Stimulus | ||||
| 2 | kill | past | chief | a large ox | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ox=Theme | ||||
| 3 | say speech: assert | past | chief not said here | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 4 | eat | must | the people | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
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/pg71335/14/17/