Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 5
He listened for a while, and then he stood up to observe them better.
Who acts: man · What happens: listen, stand up, observe · To what, where: birds
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 (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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 listened | nsubj |
| 2 | listened | listen | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | for | for | ADP | _ | 5 while | case |
| 4 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 while | det |
| 5 | while | while | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 listened | obl |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 stood | punct |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 10 stood | cc |
| 8 | then | then | ADV | PronType=Dem | 10 stood | advmod |
| 9 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 stood | nsubj |
| 10 | stood | stand | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 listened | conj |
| 11 | up | up | ADP | _ | 10 stood | compound:prt |
| 12 | to | to | PART | _ | 13 observe | mark |
| 13 | observe | observe | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 stood | advcl |
| 14 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 13 observe | obj |
| 15 | better | good | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 13 observe | xcomp |
| 16 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 listened | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | listen | past | man | while | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | stand up | past | man | then | vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | observe | to-infinitive | man not said here | birds = bird | good property | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent they=Topic |
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/pg71335/9/5/