---
title: The keepers of calves said: “Allow us to suck this goat.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The keepers of calves said: “Allow us to suck this goat.” Who acts: keepers. 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/pg71335/10/226/)

<!-- 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/) / 226

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 226

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The keepers of calves said: “Allow us to suck this goat.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** keepers · **What happens:** say, allow, suck · **To what, where:** us, goat · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .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 (keepers), 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:pg71335:10:226
# text = The keepers of calves said: “Allow us to suck this goat.”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	keepers	keeper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	calves	calf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	Allow	allow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
9	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	suck	suck	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
12	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	13	det	_	_
13	goat	goat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the keepers of calves |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **allow** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | us |  |  |  | vn allow-64.1-1 «NP V NP S»: agent=Causer we=Beneficiary clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **suck** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | 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 225](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/225/)
- next →: [sentence 227](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/227/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Hlakanyana.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/)