Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Kenkebe., sentence 1

There was once a great famine in a certain country, and the people were obliged to eat wild plants to keep themselves alive.

Who acts: great famine · What happens: be, oblige, eat, keep · To what, where: people, wild plants, plants

This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Kenkebe.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (great famine), 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	There	there	PRON	PronType=Dem	2 was	expl
2	was	be	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	once	once	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Mult	2 was	advmod
4	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 famine	det
5	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	6 famine	amod
6	famine	famine	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	nsubj
7	in	in	ADP	_	10 country	case
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 country	det
9	certain	certain	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 country	amod
10	country	country	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 famine	nmod
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 obliged	punct
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 obliged	cc
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 people	det
14	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	16 obliged	nsubj
15	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	16 obliged	aux:pass
16	obliged	oblige	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	2 was	conj
17	to	to	PART	_	18 eat	mark
18	eat	eat	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 obliged	xcomp
19	wild	wild	ADJ	Degree=Pos	20 plants	amod
20	plants	plant	NOUN	Number=Plur	18 eat	obj
21	to	to	PART	_	22 keep	mark
22	keep	keep	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	18 eat	advcl
23	themselves	themselves	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	22 keep	obj
24	alive	alive	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 keep	xcomp
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	past	a great famine in a certain country		there	once property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	oblige	past · passive		the people			vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: subject=Patient clause=Result
3	eat	to-infinitive		wild plants			vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent plant=Patient
4	keep	to-infinitive		plants = plant		alive property	vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent themselves=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/pg71335/19/1/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Kenkebe., sentence 1

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Kenkebe., sentence 1