Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Mbulukazi., sentence 28

But Broad Breast persisted, so the man called his wives, both of whom denied that there was such a girl.

Who acts: Broad Breast, man, both, girl · What happens: persist, call, deny, be · To what, where: wives · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (Broad Breast, man, both, girl), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	4 persisted	cc
2	Broad	Broad	PROPN	Number=Sing	3 Breast	compound
3	Breast	Breast	PROPN	Number=Sing	4 persisted	nsubj
4	persisted	persist	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
5	,	,	PUNCT	_	9 called	punct
6	so	so	ADV	_	9 called	advmod
7	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	8 man	det
8	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 called	nsubj
9	called	call	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 persisted	conj
10	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	11 wives	nmod:poss
11	wives	wife	NOUN	Number=Plur	9 called	obj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 denied	punct
13	both	both	DET	PronType=Tot	16 denied	nsubj
14	of	of	SCONJ	_	16 denied	mark
15	whom	whom	PRON	PronType=Rel	16 denied	nsubj
16	denied	deny	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	4 persisted	conj
17	that	that	SCONJ	_	19 was	mark
18	there	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	19 was	expl
19	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 denied	ccomp
20	such	such	DET	PronType=Ind	22 girl	det:predet
21	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	22 girl	det
22	girl	girl	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 was	nsubj
23	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 persisted	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	persist	past	Broad Breast				vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	call	past	the man	man's wives			vn initiate_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent wife=Recipient
3	deny	past	both			whom nsubj	vn conjecture-29.5 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme
4	be	past	such girl		there		vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=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/pg71335/17/28/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Mbulukazi., sentence 28

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Mbulukazi., sentence 28