Kaffir folk-lore, Introductory Chapter Regarding the Kaffirs., sentence 122
They preserved it from the attacks of the weevil by storing it in air-tight holes excavated beneath the cattle kraals.
Who acts: species · What happens: preserve, store, excavate, attack · To what, where: stock, air tight holes, cattle kraals, weevil
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Introductory Chapter Regarding the Kaffirs.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (species), 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 | They | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 preserved | nsubj |
| 2 | preserved | preserve | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 preserved | obj |
| 4 | from | from | ADP | _ | 6 attacks | case |
| 5 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 6 attacks | det |
| 6 | attacks | attack | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 preserved | obl |
| 7 | of | of | ADP | _ | 9 weevil | case |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 weevil | det |
| 9 | weevil | weevil | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 attacks | nmod |
| 10 | by | by | SCONJ | _ | 11 storing | mark |
| 11 | storing | store | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 2 preserved | advcl |
| 12 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 storing | obj |
| 13 | in | in | ADP | _ | 17 holes | case |
| 14 | air | air | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 holes | compound |
| 15 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 14 air | punct |
| 16 | tight | tight | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 17 holes | amod |
| 17 | holes | hole | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 storing | obl |
| 18 | excavated | excavate | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 17 holes | acl |
| 19 | beneath | beneath | ADP | _ | 22 kraals | case |
| 20 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 kraals | det |
| 21 | cattle | cattle | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 22 kraals | amod |
| 22 | kraals | kraal | NOUN | Number=Plur | 18 excavated | obl |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 preserved | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | preserve | past | species | stock | from the attacks of the weevil | vn defend-72.3 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Beneficiary from attack=Theme | |||
| 2 | store | gerund | species not said here | stock | air tight holes | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent it=Theme in hole=Location | |||
| 3 | excavate | participle | air tight holes not said here | the cattle kraals | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent beneath kraal=Location | ||||
| 4 | attack | the weevil | nom attack «act transitive»: of=patient |
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/pg71335/2/122/