---
title: When they opened the pot they found no meat. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: When they opened the pot they found no meat. Who acts: men. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Hlakanyana., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 119

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When they opened the pot they found no meat.

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** open, find · **To what, where:** pot, meat

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Hlakanyana.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (men), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg71335:10:119
# text = When they opened the pot they found no meat.
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	opened	open	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	pot	pot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	found	find	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	9	det	_	_
9	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **open** | past | men *= man* | the pot |  |  |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location pot=Theme |
| 2 | **find** | past | men *= man* | no meat |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent meat=Topic |

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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.

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**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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