Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 30
His name was Sikulume, for he had never been able to speak till he caught the bird.
Who acts: name, chief · What happens: be, not be, speak, catch, name · To what, where: Sikulume, bird · Speech: someone speaks here
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 (name, chief), 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 | His | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 2 name | nmod:poss |
| 2 | name | name | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 Sikulume | nsubj |
| 3 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 Sikulume | cop |
| 4 | Sikulume | Sikulume | PROPN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 able | punct |
| 6 | for | for | SCONJ | _ | 11 able | mark |
| 7 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 able | nsubj |
| 8 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 11 able | aux |
| 9 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 11 able | advmod |
| 10 | been | be | AUX | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 11 able | cop |
| 11 | able | able | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 Sikulume | conj |
| 12 | to | to | PART | _ | 13 speak | mark |
| 13 | speak | speak | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 11 able | xcomp |
| 14 | till | till | SCONJ | _ | 16 caught | mark |
| 15 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 caught | nsubj |
| 16 | caught | catch | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 speak | advcl |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 bird | det |
| 18 | bird | bird | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 caught | obj |
| 19 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 Sikulume | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is a | past | chief's name | Sikulume | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | not is | past · perfect | chief | able property | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | speak speech: other | to-infinitive | chief not said here | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 4 | catch | past | chief | the bird | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=Theme | ||||
| 5 | name | chief | nom name «communication transitive»: poss=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/pg71335/9/30/