Kaffir folk-lore, Introductory Chapter Regarding the Kaffirs., sentence 228
They are perfect masters of that kind of argument which consists in parrying a question by means of putting another.
Who acts: skins, kind · What happens: be, consist, parry, mean, put · To what, where: perfect masters, question, another · Speech: someone speaks here
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 (skins, kind), 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 | 4 masters | nsubj |
| 2 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 4 masters | cop |
| 3 | perfect | perfect | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 masters | amod |
| 4 | masters | master | NOUN | Number=Plur | root | root |
| 5 | of | of | ADP | _ | 7 kind | case |
| 6 | that | that | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 7 kind | det |
| 7 | kind | kind | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 masters | nmod |
| 8 | of | of | ADP | _ | 9 argument | case |
| 9 | argument | argument | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 kind | nmod |
| 10 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 11 consists | nsubj |
| 11 | consists | consist | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 7 kind | acl:relcl |
| 12 | in | in | SCONJ | _ | 13 parrying | mark |
| 13 | parrying | parry | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 11 consists | advcl |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 15 question | det |
| 15 | question | question | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 parrying | obj |
| 16 | by | by | ADP | _ | 17 means | case |
| 17 | means | mean | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 13 parrying | parataxis |
| 18 | of | of | SCONJ | _ | 19 putting | mark |
| 19 | putting | put | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 17 means | ccomp |
| 20 | another | another | DET | PronType=Ind | 19 putting | obj |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 masters | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | present | skins = skin | perfect masters | of that kind of argument | tree rules | |||
| 2 | consist | present | that kind of argument | tree rules | |||||
| 3 | parry | gerund | that kind of argument not said here | a question | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | mean | present | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | ||||||
| 5 | put | gerund | another | vn invest-13.5.4-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent another=Goal |
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/pg71335/2/228/