Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Girl and the Mbulu., sentence 37

She had a child, and one day, when it was playing, a square pumpkin came out of the ground where the mbulu was buried, and tried to kill the infant.

Who acts: mbulu, child, square pumpkin · What happens: have, play, come out, bury, try, kill · To what, where: child, ground, mbulu, infant

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 (mbulu, child, square pumpkin), 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	She	she	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 had	nsubj
2	had	have	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	4 child	det
4	child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 had	obj
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	13 playing	punct
6	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 playing	cc
7	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	8 day	nummod
8	day	day	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 playing	obl:unmarked
9	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 day	punct
10	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	13 playing	advmod
11	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	13 playing	nsubj
12	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 playing	aux
13	playing	play	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	2 had	advcl
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 came	punct
15	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	17 pumpkin	det
16	square	square	ADJ	Degree=Pos	17 pumpkin	amod
17	pumpkin	pumpkin	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 came	nsubj
18	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	13 playing	conj
19	out	out	ADP	_	22 ground	case
20	of	of	ADP	_	22 ground	case
21	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 ground	det
22	ground	ground	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 came	obl
23	where	where	ADV	PronType=Rel	27 buried	advmod
24	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	25 mbulu	det
25	mbulu	mbulu	PROPN	Number=Sing	27 buried	nsubj:pass
26	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	27 buried	aux:pass
27	buried	bury	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	22 ground	acl:relcl
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 tried	punct
29	and	and	CCONJ	_	30 tried	cc
30	tried	try	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 had	conj
31	to	to	PART	_	32 kill	mark
32	kill	kill	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	30 tried	xcomp
33	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	34 infant	det
34	infant	infant	NOUN	Number=Sing	32 kill	obj
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 had	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	roles by
1	have	past	mbulu	a child		vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent child=Patient
2	play	past · progressive	child		day	vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	come out	past	a square pumpkin	the ground		vn become-109.1 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Patient ground=Result
4	bury	past · passive		the mbulu		vn put-9.1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Theme
5	try	past	mbulu not said here			vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
6	kill not said to happen	to-infinitive	mbulu not said here	the infant		vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent infant=Theme

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/pg71335/16/37/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Girl and the Mbulu., sentence 37

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Girl and the Mbulu., sentence 37