Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., sentence 23
She said in her heart, “I will not cut the grass off again, I will just hoe the ground as it is.”
Who acts: thing, ground · What happens: say, not cut off, hoe, be · To what, where: heart, grass, ground · 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 (thing, ground), 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 | She | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 said | nsubj |
| 2 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | in | in | ADP | _ | 5 heart | case |
| 4 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 5 heart | nmod:poss |
| 5 | heart | heart | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 said | obl |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 cut | punct |
| 7 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 11 cut | punct |
| 8 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 11 cut | nsubj |
| 9 | will | will | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 11 cut | aux |
| 10 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 11 cut | advmod |
| 11 | cut | cut | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 said | ccomp |
| 12 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 13 grass | det |
| 13 | grass | grass | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 cut | obj |
| 14 | off | off | ADP | _ | 11 cut | compound:prt |
| 15 | again | again | ADV | _ | 11 cut | advmod |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 hoe | punct |
| 17 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 20 hoe | nsubj |
| 18 | will | will | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 20 hoe | aux |
| 19 | just | just | ADV | _ | 20 hoe | advmod |
| 20 | hoe | hoe | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 11 cut | conj |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 ground | det |
| 22 | ground | ground | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 hoe | obj |
| 23 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 25 is | mark |
| 24 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 25 is | nsubj |
| 25 | is | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 20 hoe | advcl |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 11 cut | punct |
| 27 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 11 cut | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | past | thing | thing's heart | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | ||||
| 2 | not cut off in a quote | future | thing | the grass | again | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector grass=Eventuality | |||
| 3 | hoe in a quote | future | thing | the ground | vn funnel-9.3 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent ground=Theme | ||||
| 4 | be in a quote | present | ground | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
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/pg71335/3/23/