---
title: At the time for giving food, the leopardess came back and said: “Giv… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: At the time for giving food, the leopardess came back and said: “Give me my children that I may suckle them.” Who acts: time, leopardess, children. 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/pg71335/10/345/)

<!-- 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/) / 345

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 345

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
At the time for giving food, the leopardess came back and said: “Give me my children that I may suckle them.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** time, leopardess, children · **What happens:** give, come back, say, suckle · **To what, where:** food, children · **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 (time, leopardess, children), 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:pg71335:10:345
# text = At the time for giving food, the leopardess came back and said: “Give me my children that I may suckle them.”
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
4	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
5	giving	give	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	acl	_	_
6	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	leopardess	leopardess	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	back	back	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	_
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	Give	give	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	ccomp	_	_
17	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	iobj	_	_
18	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	iobj	_	_
20	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	23	nsubj	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	suckle	suckle	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	acl:relcl	_	_
24	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | gerund | the time *not said here* | food |  |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent food=Theme |
| 2 | **come back** | past | the leopardess |  |  |  | time |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the leopardess *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **give** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  | my children |  |  | me *iobj* | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient child=Theme |
| 5 | **suckle** *in a quote* | may | my children | children *= child* |  |  |  | I *nsubj* | vn feeding-39.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Recipient |

<!-- .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 344](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/344/)
- next →: [sentence 346](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/346/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Hlakanyana.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/)