Kaffir folk-lore, Proverbs and Figurative Expressions., sentence 171
An animal cannot extricate itself easily when fast by one of its front legs.
Who acts: animal · What happens: not extricate · To what, where: animal
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Proverbs and Figurative Expressions.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (animal), 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 | An | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 2 animal | det |
| 2 | animal | animal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 extricate | nsubj |
| 3 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 5 extricate | aux |
| 4 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 5 extricate | advmod |
| 5 | extricate | extricate | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 6 | itself | itself | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 5 extricate | obj |
| 7 | easily | easily | ADV | _ | 5 extricate | advmod |
| 8 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 9 fast | advmod |
| 9 | fast | fast | ADV | Degree=Pos | 11 one | advmod |
| 10 | by | by | ADP | _ | 11 one | case |
| 11 | one | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 5 extricate | obj |
| 12 | of | of | ADP | _ | 15 legs | case |
| 13 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 15 legs | nmod:poss |
| 14 | front | front | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 15 legs | amod |
| 15 | legs | leg | NOUN | Number=Plur | 11 one | nmod |
| 16 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 extricate | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not extricate | can | a animal | animal | one of animal's front legs obj; easily 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.
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