---
title: The tortoise held fast to Hlakanyana, and would not be pulled off. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The tortoise held fast to Hlakanyana, and would not be pulled off. 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/pg71335/10/430/)

<!-- 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/) / 430

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Hlakanyana., sentence 430

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The tortoise held fast to Hlakanyana, and would not be pulled off.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** hold, not pull off · **To what, where:** tortoise, Hlakanyana

<!-- .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:pg71335:10:430
# text = The tortoise held fast to Hlakanyana, and would not be pulled off.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	tortoise	tortoise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	held	hold	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	acl	_	_
4	fast	fast	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	Hlakanyana	Hlakanyana	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
11	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	aux:pass	_	_
12	pulled	pull	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
13	off	off	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold** | participle |  | the tortoise *not said here* | Hlakanyana |  |  | fast *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **pull off** | would · passive |  | the tortoise |  |  |  |  | vn complete-55.2 «NP V NP»: subject=Eventuality |

<!-- .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 429](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/429/)
- next →: [sentence 431](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/431/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Hlakanyana.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/10/)