Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 30
He took out his knife from the sheath, and was going to cut the head of the bird off.
Who acts: Bird · What happens: take out, go, cut off · To what, where: knife, sheath, head
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 (Bird), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 took | nsubj |
| 2 | took | take | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | out | out | ADP | _ | 2 took | compound:prt |
| 4 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 5 knife | nmod:poss |
| 5 | knife | knife | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 took | obj |
| 6 | from | from | ADP | _ | 8 sheath | case |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 sheath | det |
| 8 | sheath | sheath | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 took | obl |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 going | punct |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 12 going | cc |
| 11 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 going | aux |
| 12 | going | go | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 2 took | conj |
| 13 | to | to | PART | _ | 14 cut | mark |
| 14 | cut | cut | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 going | xcomp |
| 15 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 16 head | det |
| 16 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 cut | obj |
| 17 | of | of | ADP | _ | 19 bird | case |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 bird | det |
| 19 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 head | nmod |
| 20 | off | off | ADP | _ | 14 cut | compound:prt |
| 21 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 took | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | take out | past | Bird | Bird's knife | the sheath | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent knife=Theme from sheath=Initial_Location | |||
| 2 | go | past · progressive | Bird not said here | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 3 | cut off | to-infinitive | Bird not said here | the head of the bird | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=Eventuality |
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/pg71335/4/30/