Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 49

They tried to watch and to see what he was eating, but they never could find out at all.

Who acts: people, Masilo · What happens: try, watch, see, eat, not find out · To what, where: all · 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, Masilo), 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	They	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	2 tried	nsubj
2	tried	try	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	to	to	PART	_	4 watch	mark
4	watch	watch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 tried	xcomp
5	and	and	CCONJ	_	7 see	cc
6	to	to	PART	_	7 see	mark
7	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	4 watch	conj
8	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	11 eating	obj
9	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	11 eating	nsubj
10	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	11 eating	aux
11	eating	eat	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	7 see	ccomp
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	17 find	punct
13	but	but	CCONJ	_	17 find	cc
14	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 find	nsubj
15	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	17 find	advmod
16	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	17 find	aux
17	find	find	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	2 tried	conj
18	out	out	ADP	_	17 find	compound:prt
19	at	at	ADP	_	20 all	case
20	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	17 find	obl
21	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 tried	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	where	other	roles by
1	try	past	people			vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality
2	watch not said to happen	to-infinitive	people not said here			vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent
3	see	to-infinitive	people not said here			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
4	eat	past · progressive	Masilo		what obj	vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Patient
5	not find out	could	people	all		vn learn-14-2-1 «NP V PP.topic»: agent=Agent

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/pg71335/4/49/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 49

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 49