Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 84
The cannibal came there, and tried to cut the tree down with his sharp and long nail.
Who acts: cannibal · What happens: come, try, cut down · To what, where: tree
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 (cannibal), 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 cannibal | det |
| 2 | cannibal | cannibal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 came | nsubj |
| 3 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | there | there | ADV | PronType=Dem | 3 came | advmod |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 7 tried | punct |
| 6 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 7 tried | cc |
| 7 | tried | try | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 came | conj |
| 8 | to | to | PART | _ | 9 cut | mark |
| 9 | cut | cut | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 7 tried | xcomp |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 tree | det |
| 11 | tree | tree | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 cut | obj |
| 12 | down | down | ADV | _ | 9 cut | advmod |
| 13 | with | with | ADP | _ | 18 nail | case |
| 14 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 18 nail | nmod:poss |
| 15 | sharp | sharp | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 18 nail | amod |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 17 long | cc |
| 17 | long | long | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 15 sharp | conj |
| 18 | nail | nail | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 cut | obl |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 came | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | come | past | the cannibal | there | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 2 | try | past | the cannibal not said here | vn try-61.1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 3 | cut down not said to happen | to-infinitive | the cannibal not said here | the tree | with cannibal's sharp nail; down property | vn cut-21.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tree=Patient with nail=Instrument |
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/pg71335/4/84/