Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Demane and Demazana., sentence 4
A common complaint concerning native servant girls is that they claim every other person they meet as a brother or a sister.
Who acts: common complaint, girls · What happens: concern, be, meet · To what, where: native servant girls, other person
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Demane and Demazana.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (common complaint, girls), 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 | A | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 3 complaint | det |
| 2 | common | common | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 complaint | amod |
| 3 | complaint | complaint | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 claim | nsubj |
| 4 | concerning | concern | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 3 complaint | acl |
| 5 | native | native | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 girls | amod |
| 6 | servant | servant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 girls | compound |
| 7 | girls | girl | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 concerning | obj |
| 8 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 11 claim | cop |
| 9 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 11 claim | mark |
| 10 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 claim | nsubj |
| 11 | claim | claim | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 12 | every | every | DET | PronType=Tot | 14 person | det |
| 13 | other | other | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 person | amod |
| 14 | person | person | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 claim | obj |
| 15 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 meet | nsubj |
| 16 | meet | meet | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 14 person | acl:relcl |
| 17 | as | as | ADP | _ | 19 brother | case |
| 18 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 19 brother | det |
| 19 | brother | brother | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 meet | obl |
| 20 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 22 sister | cc |
| 21 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 22 sister | det |
| 22 | sister | sister | NOUN | Number=Sing | 19 brother | conj |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 11 claim | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | concern | gerund | a common complaint not said here | native servant girls | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus girl=Experiencer | ||||
| 2 | is | present | a common complaint | girls = girl nsubj; every other person obj; claim property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | meet | present | girls = girl | every other person not said here | as a brother or a sister | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent person=Co-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/pg71335/34/4/