Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., sentence 44
Then the bird said to him: “I am not a bird that should be killed.
Who acts: bird · What happens: say, not be, kill · To what, where: man, bird · 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 (bird), 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 | Then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 4 said | advmod |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 bird | det |
| 3 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 said | nsubj |
| 4 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 5 | to | to | ADP | _ | 6 him | case |
| 6 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 4 said | obl |
| 7 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 13 bird | punct |
| 8 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 13 bird | punct |
| 9 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 13 bird | nsubj |
| 10 | am | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 13 bird | cop |
| 11 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 13 bird | advmod |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 13 bird | det |
| 13 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 said | ccomp |
| 14 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 17 killed | nsubj:pass |
| 15 | should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 17 killed | aux |
| 16 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 17 killed | aux:pass |
| 17 | killed | kill | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 13 bird | acl:relcl |
| 18 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | past | the bird | man | then | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient | |||
| 2 | not is a in a quote | present | the bird = bird | a bird | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | kill in a quote | should · passive | a bird | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: subject=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/pg71335/3/44/