Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 9
Then there came a bird and stood upon the house which was beside the garden, and began to whistle, and said:
Who acts: bird, house · What happens: come, stand, be, begin, whistle, say · To what, where: house, garden · 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 (bird, house), 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 | Then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 3 came | advmod |
| 2 | there | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 3 came | expl |
| 3 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 23 said | advcl |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 bird | det |
| 5 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 came | nsubj |
| 6 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 7 stood | cc |
| 7 | stood | stand | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 came | conj |
| 8 | upon | upon | ADP | _ | 10 house | case |
| 9 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 10 house | det |
| 10 | house | house | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 stood | obl |
| 11 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 15 garden | nsubj |
| 12 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 garden | cop |
| 13 | beside | beside | ADP | _ | 15 garden | case |
| 14 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 garden | det |
| 15 | garden | garden | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 house | acl:relcl |
| 16 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 began | punct |
| 17 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 began | cc |
| 18 | began | begin | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 came | conj |
| 19 | to | to | PART | _ | 20 whistle | mark |
| 20 | whistle | whistle | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 18 began | xcomp |
| 21 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 23 said | punct |
| 22 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 23 said | cc |
| 23 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 24 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 23 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | come | past | a bird | there | then | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||
| 2 | stand | past | a bird not said here | the house | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent upon house=Location | ||||
| 3 | is | past | the house | the garden | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | begin | past | a bird not said here | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 5 | whistle | to-infinitive | a bird not said here | vn manner_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 6 | say speech: assert | past | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: 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/pg71335/4/9/