Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Wonderful Horns., sentence 1

There was once a boy whose mother that bore him was dead, and he was ill-treated by his other mothers.

Who acts: boy, mother · What happens: be, bear, treat · To what, where: boy

This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Wonderful Horns.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy, mother), 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	5 boy	det
5	boy	boy	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 was	nsubj
6	whose	whose	PRON	Poss=Yes PronType=Rel	7 mother	nmod:poss
7	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 dead	nsubj
8	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	9 bore	nsubj
9	bore	bear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 mother	acl:relcl
10	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 bore	obj
11	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	12 dead	cop
12	dead	dead	ADJ	Degree=Pos	5 boy	acl:relcl
13	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 ill	punct
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 ill	cc
15	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 ill	nsubj
16	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	17 ill	cop
17	ill	ill	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 was	parataxis
18	-	-	PUNCT	_	19 treated	punct
19	treated	treat	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	17 ill	conj
20	by	by	ADP	_	23 mothers	case
21	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	23 mothers	nmod:poss
22	other	other	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 mothers	amod
23	mothers	mother	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 treated	obl
24	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 was	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	be	past	a boy		there	once property	vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
2	bear	past	mother	boy			vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Patient
3	is	past	mother			dead property	tree rules
4	is	past	boy			ill property	tree rules
5	treat	participle	boy not said here			by boy's other mothers	vn equip-13.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=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/pg71335/21/1/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Wonderful Horns., sentence 1

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Wonderful Horns., sentence 1