Kaffir folk-lore, The Girl and the Mbulu., sentence 1
The mbulu is a fabulous creature, firmly believed in by little folks.
Who acts: mbulu · What happens: be, believe in · To what, where: fabulous creature
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Girl and the Mbulu.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mbulu), 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 mbulu | det |
| 2 | mbulu | mbulu | X | Foreign=Yes | 6 creature | nsubj |
| 3 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 6 creature | cop |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 creature | det |
| 5 | fabulous | fabulous | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 creature | amod |
| 6 | creature | creature | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 9 believed | punct |
| 8 | firmly | firmly | ADV | _ | 9 believed | advmod |
| 9 | believed | believe | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 6 creature | acl |
| 10 | in | in | ADP | _ | 9 believed | compound:prt |
| 11 | by | by | ADP | _ | 13 folks | case |
| 12 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 13 folks | amod |
| 13 | folks | folk | NOUN | Number=Plur | 9 believed | obl |
| 14 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 creature | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | present | the mbulu | a fabulous creature | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | believe in | participle | a fabulous creature not said here | by little folks; firmly property | vn admire-31.2 «NP V that S»: agent=Experiencer |
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/pg71335/36/1/