Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 73
They all went on their way, but very soon they saw the cannibals coming after them.
Who acts: hands, cannibals · What happens: go, see, come · To what, where: way, cannibals
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 (hands, cannibals), 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 | 3 went | nsubj |
| 2 | all | all | DET | PronType=Tot | 3 went | advmod |
| 3 | went | go | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | on | on | ADP | _ | 6 way | case |
| 5 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 6 way | nmod:poss |
| 6 | way | way | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 went | obl |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 saw | punct |
| 8 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 12 saw | cc |
| 9 | very | very | ADV | _ | 10 soon | advmod |
| 10 | soon | soon | ADV | Degree=Pos | 12 saw | advmod |
| 11 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 saw | nsubj |
| 12 | saw | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 went | conj |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 14 cannibals | det |
| 14 | cannibals | cannibal | NOUN | Number=Plur | 12 saw | obj |
| 15 | coming | come | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 14 cannibals | acl |
| 16 | after | after | ADP | _ | 17 them | case |
| 17 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 15 coming | obl |
| 18 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 went | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | go | past | hands = hand | hands's way | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on way=Location | ||||
| 2 | see | past | hands = hand | the cannibals | soon property | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer cannibal=Stimulus | |||
| 3 | come | gerund | the cannibals not said here | after hands = hand | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
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/pg71335/9/73/