Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., sentence 95
The Umkomanzi cannot be crossed, It is crossed by swallows Whose wings are long.”
Who acts: swallows, wings · What happens: not cross, cross, be · To what, where: Umkomanzi
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 (swallows, wings), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 Umkomanzi | det |
| 2 | Umkomanzi | Umkomanzi | PROPN | Number=Sing | 6 crossed | nsubj:pass |
| 3 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 6 crossed | aux |
| 4 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 6 crossed | advmod |
| 5 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 6 crossed | aux:pass |
| 6 | crossed | cross | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 crossed | punct |
| 8 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 crossed | nsubj:pass |
| 9 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 10 crossed | aux:pass |
| 10 | crossed | cross | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 6 crossed | conj |
| 11 | by | by | ADP | _ | 12 swallows | case |
| 12 | swallows | swallow | NOUN | Number=Plur | 10 crossed | obl |
| 13 | Whose | whose | PRON | Poss=Yes PronType=Rel | 14 wings | nmod:poss |
| 14 | wings | wing | NOUN | Number=Plur | 16 long | nsubj |
| 15 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 16 long | cop |
| 16 | long | long | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 12 swallows | acl:relcl |
| 17 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 crossed | punct |
| 18 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 6 crossed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not cross | can · passive | the Umkomanzi | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient | |||||
| 2 | cross | present · passive | swallows | Umkomanzi | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent subject=Patient | ||||
| 3 | is | present | wings | long 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.
This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/3/95/