Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 1
There was once in a certain village an old man who was very poor.
Who acts: old man · What happens: be · To what, where: certain village
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old man), 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 | There | there | PRON | PronType=Dem | 2 was | expl |
| 2 | was | be | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | once | once | ADV | NumForm=Word NumType=Mult | 2 was | advmod |
| 4 | in | in | ADP | _ | 7 village | case |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 7 village | det |
| 6 | certain | certain | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 7 village | amod |
| 7 | village | village | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 was | obl |
| 8 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 10 man | det |
| 9 | old | old | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 man | amod |
| 10 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 village | appos |
| 11 | who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 14 poor | nsubj |
| 12 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 poor | cop |
| 13 | very | very | ADV | _ | 14 poor | advmod |
| 14 | poor | poor | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 man | acl:relcl |
| 15 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 was | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | be | past | a certain village; there | once property | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in village=Location | ||||
| 2 | is | past | a old man | poor property | tree rules |
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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