Kaffir folk-lore, Introductory Chapter Regarding the Kaffirs., sentence 150
“Perhaps he was, we don’t know; he is greater than all these.”
Who acts: Qamata · What happens: not be, be
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 (Qamata), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 9 know | punct |
| 2 | Perhaps | perhaps | ADV | _ | 9 know | advmod |
| 3 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 9 know | nsubj |
| 4 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 9 know | cop |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 know | punct |
| 6 | we | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 9 know | nsubj |
| 7 | do | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 9 know | aux |
| 8 | n’t | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 9 know | advmod |
| 9 | know | know | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 10 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 13 greater | punct |
| 11 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 greater | nsubj |
| 12 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 13 greater | cop |
| 13 | greater | great | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 9 know | parataxis |
| 14 | than | than | ADP | _ | 16 these | case |
| 15 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 16 these | det:predet |
| 16 | these | this | PRON | Number=Plur PronType=Dem | 13 greater | obl |
| 17 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 9 know | punct |
| 18 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 9 know | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not is in a quote | past · do-support | Qamata | we nsubj; know, perhaps property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | is in a quote | present | Qamata | than these; great property | tree rules |
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/pg71335/2/150/