Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Simbukumbukwana., sentence 9

But among them was a plant to be chewed when crossing a stream, to prevent the river spirit from biting a person.

Who acts: medicines · What happens: be, chew, cross, prevent, bite · To what, where: stream, river spirit, person

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 (medicines), 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	But	but	CCONJ	_	6 plant	cc
2	among	among	ADP	_	6 plant	case
3	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	6 plant	nsubj
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 plant	cop
5	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	6 plant	det
6	plant	plant	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	to	to	PART	_	9 chewed	mark
8	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	9 chewed	aux:pass
9	chewed	chew	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	6 plant	acl
10	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	11 crossing	advmod
11	crossing	cross	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	9 chewed	advcl
12	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	13 stream	det
13	stream	stream	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 crossing	obj
14	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 prevent	punct
15	to	to	PART	_	16 prevent	mark
16	prevent	prevent	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	11 crossing	conj
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 spirit	det
18	river	river	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 spirit	compound
19	spirit	spirit	NOUN	Number=Sing	16 prevent	obj
20	from	from	SCONJ	_	21 biting	mark
21	biting	bite	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	16 prevent	advcl
22	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	23 person	det
23	person	person	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 biting	obj
24	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 plant	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	is	past	medicines = medicine		among a plant	tree rules
2	chew	to-infinitive · passive				vn chew-39.2 «NP V»
3	cross	gerund		a stream		vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stream=Patient
4	prevent	to-infinitive		the river spirit		vn forbid-64.4-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Causer spirit=Theme
5	bite	gerund		a person		vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent person=Patient

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/pg71335/31/9/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Simbukumbukwana., sentence 9

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Simbukumbukwana., sentence 9