Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., sentence 1
There was once upon a time a poor man living with his wife in a certain village.
Who acts: poor man · What happens: be, live · To what, where: certain village
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor man), 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 | upon | upon | ADP | _ | 6 time | case |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 time | det |
| 6 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 was | obl |
| 7 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 9 man | det |
| 8 | poor | poor | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 man | amod |
| 9 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 time | appos |
| 10 | living | live | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 9 man | acl |
| 11 | with | with | ADP | _ | 13 wife | case |
| 12 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 13 wife | nmod:poss |
| 13 | wife | wife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 living | obl |
| 14 | in | in | ADP | _ | 17 village | case |
| 15 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 17 village | det |
| 16 | certain | certain | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 17 village | amod |
| 17 | village | village | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 living | obl |
| 18 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 was | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | be | past | there | time | once property | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||
| 2 | live | gerund | a poor man not said here | a certain village | with man's wife | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme with wife=Location |
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/pg71335/3/1/