Kaffir folk-lore, Introductory Chapter Regarding the Kaffirs., sentence 144
Negatively they replied to my inquiries much better than positively.
Who acts: corpses, my · What happens: reply, inquire
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 (corpses, my), 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 | Negatively | negatively | ADV | _ | 3 replied | advmod |
| 2 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 replied | nsubj |
| 3 | replied | reply | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | to | to | ADP | _ | 6 inquiries | case |
| 5 | my | my | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 6 inquiries | nmod:poss |
| 6 | inquiries | inquiry | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 replied | obl |
| 7 | much | much | ADV | _ | 8 better | advmod |
| 8 | better | good | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 3 replied | parataxis |
| 9 | than | than | ADP | _ | 10 positively | case |
| 10 | positively | positively | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 8 better | obl |
| 11 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 replied | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | reply speech: assert | past | corpses = corpse | to my inquiries; negatively property | vn respond-113 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to inquiry=Theme | ||||
| 2 | inquire | my | nom inquiry «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |
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/pg71335/2/144/