---
title: Why don’t you ask me to let you suck this goat?” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: Why don’t you ask me to let you suck this goat?” Who acts: you. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Hlakanyana., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/225/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Kaffir folk-lore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/) / [The Story of Hlakanyana.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/) / 225

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 225

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Why don’t you ask me to let you suck this goat?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** not ask, let, suck · **To what, where:** me, you, goat

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (you), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg71335:10:225
# text = Why don’t you ask me to let you suck this goat?”
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	suck	suck	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	goat	goat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **ask** *speech: ask* | present | you |  | me |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **let** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | you *not said here* | you |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **suck** | infinitive | you *not said here* | this goat |  |  |  |  | vn wipe\_manner-10.4.1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent goat=Source |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 224](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/224/)
- next →: [sentence 226](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/226/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Hlakanyana.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/)