Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 94

At midday the bird sent word to the chief, saying, “Command all your people to spread mats in all the paths.”

Who acts: bird · What happens: send, say, command, spread · To what, where: word, midday, people, mats, paths · 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), 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	At	at	ADP	_	2 midday	case
2	midday	midday	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 sent	obl
3	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	4 bird	det
4	bird	bird	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 sent	nsubj
5	sent	send	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	word	word	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 sent	obj
7	to	to	ADP	_	9 chief	case
8	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	9 chief	det
9	chief	chief	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 sent	obl
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	11 saying	punct
11	saying	say	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	5 sent	advcl
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 Command	punct
13	“	"	PUNCT	_	14 Command	punct
14	Command	command	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	11 saying	ccomp
15	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	17 people	det:predet
16	your	your	PRON	Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	17 people	nmod:poss
17	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	14 Command	obj
18	to	to	PART	_	19 spread	mark
19	spread	spread	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	14 Command	advcl
20	mats	mat	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 spread	obj
21	in	in	ADP	_	24 paths	case
22	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	24 paths	det:predet
23	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	24 paths	det
24	paths	path	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 spread	obl
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	14 Command	punct
26	”	"	PUNCT	_	14 Command	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	send	past	the bird	word	midday	to the chief	vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent word=Theme to chief=Destination
2	say speech: assert	gerund	the bird not said here				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
3	command in a quote	infinitive		your people			vn supervision-95.2.2-1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent people=Theme
4	spread in a quote	to-infinitive		mats	all paths		vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent mat=Theme in path=Destination

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/pg71335/4/94/

🌲 Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 94

The tree

Pragmatics

Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 94