Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 21
He said to the boys if they would give him meat he would make his bird sing for them.
Who acts: cannibal, boys · What happens: say, give, make · To what, where: meat, cannibal, bird sing · 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 (cannibal, boys), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 said | nsubj |
| 2 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | to | to | ADP | _ | 5 boys | case |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 boys | det |
| 5 | boys | boy | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 said | obl |
| 6 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 9 give | mark |
| 7 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 9 give | nsubj |
| 8 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 9 give | aux |
| 9 | give | give | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 said | ccomp |
| 10 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 9 give | iobj |
| 11 | meat | meat | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 give | obj |
| 12 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 make | nsubj |
| 13 | would | would | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 14 make | aux |
| 14 | make | make | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 said | ccomp |
| 15 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 17 sing | nmod:poss |
| 16 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 sing | compound |
| 17 | sing | sing | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 make | obj |
| 18 | for | for | ADP | _ | 19 them | case |
| 19 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 make | obl |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | past | cannibal | to the boys | vn indicate-78-1 «NP V PP.recipient that S»: agent=Pivot to boy=Experiencer clause=Topic | ||||
| 2 | give a condition, not said to happen | would | boys = boy | meat | cannibal | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient meat=Theme | |||
| 3 | make | would | cannibal | cannibal's bird sing | for boys = boy | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP P.asset»: agent=Agent sing=Product for they=Asset |
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/pg71335/14/21/