---
title: They pursued birds the whole day. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They pursued birds the whole day. Who acts: goats. 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 192

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They pursued birds the whole day.

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**Who acts:** goats · **What happens:** pursue · **To what, where:** birds

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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 (goats), 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:pg71335:10:192
# text = They pursued birds the whole day.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	pursued	pursue	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	whole	whole	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pursue** | past | goats *= goat* | birds |  |  | day |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=Theme |

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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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