Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Girl Who Disregarded the Custom of Ntonjane., sentence 5
They were very much afraid, and did not know what to do at first.
Who acts: companions · What happens: be, not know, do · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Girl Who Disregarded the Custom of Ntonjane.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (companions), 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 | 5 afraid | nsubj |
| 2 | were | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 afraid | cop |
| 3 | very | very | ADV | _ | 4 much | advmod |
| 4 | much | much | ADV | _ | 5 afraid | advmod |
| 5 | afraid | afraid | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 know | punct |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 10 know | cc |
| 8 | did | do | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 know | aux |
| 9 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 10 know | advmod |
| 10 | know | know | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | 5 afraid | parataxis |
| 11 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 13 do | obj |
| 12 | to | to | PART | _ | 13 do | mark |
| 13 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 know | ccomp |
| 14 | at | at | ADP | _ | 15 first | case |
| 15 | first | first | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Ord | 13 do | obl |
| 16 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 5 afraid | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | companions = companion | afraid property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | not know | past · do-support | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus | ||||||
| 3 | do | to-infinitive | what obj | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=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.
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