Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Girl and the Mbulu., sentence 29
In the night the tail was pursuing mice, and itself got fast in a snare.
Who acts: tail · What happens: pursue, get · To what, where: mice, snare
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Girl and the Mbulu.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (tail), 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 | In | in | ADP | _ | 3 night | case |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 night | det |
| 3 | night | night | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 pursuing | obl |
| 4 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 tail | det |
| 5 | tail | tail | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 pursuing | nsubj |
| 6 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 7 pursuing | aux |
| 7 | pursuing | pursue | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | root | root |
| 8 | mice | mouse | NOUN | Number=Plur | 7 pursuing | obj |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 got | punct |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 12 got | cc |
| 11 | itself | itself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 12 got | nsubj |
| 12 | got | get | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 7 pursuing | conj |
| 13 | fast | fast | ADV | Degree=Pos | 12 got | advmod |
| 14 | in | in | ADP | _ | 16 snare | case |
| 15 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 snare | det |
| 16 | snare | snare | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 got | obl |
| 17 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 7 pursuing | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | pursue | past · progressive | the tail | mice | night | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mouse=Theme | |||
| 2 | get | past | tail | a snare | fast property | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
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/pg71335/16/29/