---
title: He was told that his sister was gone away for some red clay. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He was told that his sister was gone away for some red clay. 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/pg71335/10/413/)

<!-- 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/) / 413

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 413

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He was told that his sister was gone away for some red clay.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** tell, go away · **To what, where:** Hlakanyana, sister · **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: 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:pg71335:10:413
# text = He was told that his sister was gone away for some red clay.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux:pass	_	_
3	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
7	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	gone	go	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	ccomp	_	_
9	away	away	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
10	for	for	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	13	det	_	_
12	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	clay	clay	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | Hlakanyana |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **go away** | past · passive |  | Hlakanyana's sister |  |  |  | for some red clay; away *property* | vn meander-47.7 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme |

<!-- .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 412](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/412/)
- next →: [sentence 414](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/414/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Hlakanyana.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/)