---
title: The cunning fellow changed himself into a little round stone. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The cunning fellow changed himself into a little round stone. Who acts: cunning fellow. 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 179

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The cunning fellow changed himself into a little round stone.

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**Who acts:** cunning fellow · **What happens:** change · **To what, where:** fellow, little round stone

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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 (cunning fellow), 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:pg71335:10:179
# text = The cunning fellow changed himself into a little round stone.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	cunning	cunning	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	fellow	fellow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	changed	change	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obj	_	_
6	into	into	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
9	round	round	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **change** | past | the cunning fellow | fellow |  |  |  | into a little round stone *result* | vn turn-26.6.1-1 «NP V NP.patient PP.result»: agent=Agent himself=Patient into stone=Result |

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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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