Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 56
Three or four children stand with their closed hands on top of each other, so as to form a column.
Who acts: Three children · What happens: stand, close, form · To what, where: column
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Three children), 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 | Three | three | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 4 children | nummod |
| 2 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 3 four | cc |
| 3 | four | four | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 1 Three | conj |
| 4 | children | child | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 stand | nsubj |
| 5 | stand | stand | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 6 | with | with | ADP | _ | 9 hands | case |
| 7 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 9 hands | nmod:poss |
| 8 | closed | close | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 9 hands | amod |
| 9 | hands | hand | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 stand | obl |
| 10 | on | on | ADP | _ | 11 top | case |
| 11 | top | top | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 hands | nmod |
| 12 | of | of | ADP | _ | 13 each | case |
| 13 | each | each | DET | PronType=Tot | 11 top | nmod |
| 14 | other | other | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 13 each | fixed |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 form | punct |
| 16 | so | so | ADV | _ | 19 form | advmod |
| 17 | as | as | SCONJ | _ | 19 form | mark |
| 18 | to | to | PART | _ | 19 form | mark |
| 19 | form | form | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 5 stand | advcl |
| 20 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 21 column | det |
| 21 | column | column | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 form | obj |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 stand | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | stand | present | Three children | with children's closed hands on top of each | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | close | participle | vn other_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient | ||||||
| 3 | form | to-infinitive | Three children not said here | a column | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location column=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/pg71335/32/56/