Kaffir folk-lore, The Girl and the Mbulu., sentence 3
One of its peculiarities is that it never speaks the truth when it is possible to tell a falsehood.
Who acts: mbulu, One · What happens: not speak, be, tell · To what, where: truth, falsehood · Speech: someone speaks here
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, One), 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 | One | one | NUM | NumForm=Word NumType=Card | 15 possible | nsubj |
| 2 | of | of | ADP | _ | 4 peculiarities | case |
| 3 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 4 peculiarities | nmod:poss |
| 4 | peculiarities | peculiarity | NOUN | Number=Plur | 1 One | nmod |
| 5 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 15 possible | cop |
| 6 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 9 speaks | mark |
| 7 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 9 speaks | nsubj |
| 8 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 9 speaks | advmod |
| 9 | speaks | speak | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 15 possible | advcl |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 truth | det |
| 11 | truth | truth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 speaks | obj |
| 12 | when | when | SCONJ | _ | 15 possible | mark |
| 13 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 possible | nsubj |
| 14 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 15 possible | cop |
| 15 | possible | possible | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 16 | to | to | PART | _ | 17 tell | mark |
| 17 | tell | tell | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 possible | csubj |
| 18 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 19 falsehood | det |
| 19 | falsehood | falsehood | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 tell | obj |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 15 possible | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not speak speech: other | present | mbulu | the truth | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | is | present | One of mbulu's peculiarities | it nsubj; possible property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | tell speech: assert | to-infinitive | a falsehood | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent falsehood=Recipient |
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/pg71335/36/3/