Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Simbukumbukwana., sentence 15
The Kaffir is a perfect slave to charms, and hardly ever undertakes any matter of importance without using them.
Who acts: Kaffir, importance · What happens: be, undertake, use, matter · To what, where: perfect slave, matter, matters
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Simbukumbukwana.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Kaffir, importance), 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 Kaffir | det |
| 2 | Kaffir | Kaffir | PROPN | Number=Sing | 6 slave | nsubj |
| 3 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 6 slave | cop |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 slave | det |
| 5 | perfect | perfect | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 slave | amod |
| 6 | slave | slave | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 7 | to | to | ADP | _ | 8 charms | case |
| 8 | charms | charm | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 slave | nmod |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 13 undertakes | punct |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 13 undertakes | cc |
| 11 | hardly | hardly | ADV | _ | 13 undertakes | advmod |
| 12 | ever | ever | ADV | PronType=Ind | 13 undertakes | advmod |
| 13 | undertakes | undertake | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 6 slave | conj |
| 14 | any | any | DET | PronType=Ind | 15 matter | det |
| 15 | matter | matter | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 undertakes | obj |
| 16 | of | of | ADP | _ | 17 importance | case |
| 17 | importance | importance | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 matter | nmod |
| 18 | without | without | SCONJ | _ | 19 using | mark |
| 19 | using | use | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 13 undertakes | advcl |
| 20 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 19 using | obj |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 slave | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | present | the Kaffir | a perfect slave | to charms | tree rules | |||
| 2 | undertake | present | the Kaffir not said here | any matter of importance | ever | hardly property | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent matter=Eventuality | ||
| 3 | use | gerund | the Kaffir not said here | matters = matter | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Patient | ||||
| 4 | matter | importance | nom matter «cognition intransitive»: of=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/pg71335/31/15/