Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 34
At first he could not believe it was his daughter, for he thought she was observing ntonjane.
Who acts: cannibal, bag, plenty · What happens: not believe, be, think, observe · To what, where: daughter, ntonjane · 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, bag, plenty), 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 | At | at | ADP | _ | 2 first | case |
| 2 | first | first | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Ord | 6 believe | obl |
| 3 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 6 believe | nsubj |
| 4 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 6 believe | aux |
| 5 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 6 believe | advmod |
| 6 | believe | believe | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 7 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 daughter | nsubj |
| 8 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 daughter | cop |
| 9 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 10 daughter | nmod:poss |
| 10 | daughter | daughter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 believe | ccomp |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 thought | punct |
| 12 | for | for | SCONJ | _ | 14 thought | mark |
| 13 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 14 thought | nsubj |
| 14 | thought | think | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 believe | advcl |
| 15 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 17 observing | nsubj |
| 16 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 17 observing | aux |
| 17 | observing | observe | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 14 thought | ccomp |
| 18 | ntonjane | ntonjane | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 observing | obj |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 believe | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not believe | could | cannibal | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer | |||||
| 2 | is a | past | bag | cannibal's daughter | cannibal nmod:poss | tree rules | |||
| 3 | think speech: other | past | cannibal | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme | |||||
| 4 | observe | past · progressive | plenty | ntonjane | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent ntonjane=Topic |
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/pg71335/14/34/