---
title: The people said to them: “Tell us the news.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The people said to them: “Tell us the news.” Who acts: people. 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 263

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The people said to them: “Tell us the news.”

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**Who acts:** people · **What happens:** say, tell · **To what, where:** others, news, us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (people), 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:pg71335:10:263
# text = The people said to them: “Tell us the news.”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	Tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
9	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	news	news	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the people |  | others *= other* |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive |  | the news | us |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent we=Recipient news=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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