Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Mbulukazi., sentence 12
Then the doves scratched her knees till the blood flowed, and put the blood in the jars.
Who acts: doves, blood · What happens: scratch, flow, put · To what, where: knees, blood, jars
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Mbulukazi.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (doves, blood), 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 | Then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 4 scratched | advmod |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 doves | det |
| 3 | doves | dove | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 scratched | nsubj |
| 4 | scratched | scratch | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 6 knees | nmod:poss |
| 6 | knees | knee | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 scratched | obj |
| 7 | till | till | SCONJ | _ | 10 flowed | mark |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 blood | det |
| 9 | blood | blood | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 flowed | nsubj |
| 10 | flowed | flow | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 scratched | advcl |
| 11 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 13 put | punct |
| 12 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 13 put | cc |
| 13 | put | put | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 flowed | advcl |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 blood | det |
| 15 | blood | blood | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 put | obj |
| 16 | in | in | ADP | _ | 18 jars | case |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 jars | det |
| 18 | jars | jar | NOUN | Number=Plur | 13 put | obl |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 scratched | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | scratch | past | the doves | Numbakatali's knees | then | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knee=Theme | |||
| 2 | flow | past | the blood | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 3 | put | infinitive | the blood not said here | the blood | the jars | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent blood=Theme in jar=Destination |
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/pg71335/17/12/