Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 3
It is said that there was once a great town in a certain place, which had many people living in it.
Who acts: great town, certain place, many people · What happens: say, be, have, live · To what, where: language, many 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 (great town, certain place, many people), 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 | It | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 said | nsubj |
| 2 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 3 said | aux:pass |
| 3 | said | say | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 4 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 6 was | mark |
| 5 | there | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 6 was | expl |
| 6 | was | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 said | ccomp |
| 7 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 10 town | advmod |
| 8 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 10 town | det |
| 9 | great | great | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 town | amod |
| 10 | town | town | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 was | nsubj |
| 11 | in | in | ADP | _ | 14 place | case |
| 12 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 14 place | det |
| 13 | certain | certain | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 14 place | amod |
| 14 | place | place | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 town | nmod |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 17 had | punct |
| 16 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 17 had | nsubj |
| 17 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 place | acl:relcl |
| 18 | many | many | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 19 people | amod |
| 19 | people | people | NOUN | Number=Plur | 17 had | obj |
| 20 | living | live | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 19 people | acl |
| 21 | in | in | ADP | _ | 22 it | case |
| 22 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 20 living | obl |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | present · passive | language | tree rules | |||||
| 2 | be | past | a great town in a certain place | there | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 3 | have | past | a certain place | many people | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent people=Patient | ||||
| 4 | live | gerund | many people not said here | language | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in it=Location |
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/pg71335/4/3/