Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 16
The people began to laugh at them, and mocked them, and said: “It is because you are very lazy.”
Who acts: people, place · What happens: begin, laugh, mock, say, be · To what, where: people · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people, place), 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 people | det |
| 2 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 began | nsubj |
| 3 | began | begin | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | to | to | PART | _ | 5 laugh | mark |
| 5 | laugh | laugh | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 3 began | xcomp |
| 6 | at | at | ADP | _ | 7 them | case |
| 7 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 laugh | obl |
| 8 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 mocked | punct |
| 9 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 10 mocked | cc |
| 10 | mocked | mock | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 began | parataxis |
| 11 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 mocked | obj |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 14 said | punct |
| 13 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 14 said | cc |
| 14 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 began | parataxis |
| 15 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 23 lazy | punct |
| 16 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 23 lazy | punct |
| 17 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 23 lazy | nsubj |
| 18 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 23 lazy | cop |
| 19 | because | because | SCONJ | _ | 23 lazy | mark |
| 20 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 23 lazy | nsubj |
| 21 | are | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 23 lazy | cop |
| 22 | very | very | ADV | _ | 23 lazy | advmod |
| 23 | lazy | lazy | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 said | ccomp |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 began | punct |
| 25 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 began | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | begin | past | the people | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 2 | laugh | to-infinitive | the people not said here | at people | vn nonverbal_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | mock | past | people | vn judgment-33.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Theme | |||||
| 4 | say speech: assert | past | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | ||||||
| 5 | is in a quote | present | place | you nsubj; lazy property | tree rules |
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/pg71335/4/16/