Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., sentence 120

Their mother besought their father, saying that they should be released; but the man refused.

Who acts: mother, man · What happens: beseech, say, release, refuse · To what, where: father, children · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (mother, 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	Their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	2 mother	nmod:poss
2	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 besought	nsubj
3	besought	beseech	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
4	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	5 father	nmod:poss
5	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 besought	obj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 saying	punct
7	saying	say	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	3 besought	advcl
8	that	that	SCONJ	_	12 released	mark
9	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 released	nsubj:pass
10	should	should	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	12 released	aux
11	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	12 released	aux:pass
12	released	release	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	7 saying	ccomp
13	;	;	PUNCT	_	17 refused	punct
14	but	but	CCONJ	_	17 refused	cc
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	16 man	det
16	man	man	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 refused	nsubj
17	refused	refuse	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 besought	conj
18	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 besought	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	roles by
1	beseech	past	children's mother	children's father	tree rules
2	say speech: assert	gerund	children's mother not said here		vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	release	should · passive		children = child	vn free-10.6.3-1 «NP V NP S_ING»: subject=Source
4	refuse	past	the man		vn reject-77.2 «NP V S_ING»: 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/pg71335/3/120/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., sentence 120

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., sentence 120