---
title: They said: “How can such a thing as you are carry meat?” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They said: “How can such a thing as you are carry meat?” Who acts: men, you. 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 54

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They said: “How can such a thing as you are carry meat?”

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**Who acts:** men, you · **What happens:** say, carry · **To what, where:** meat · **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 (men, you), 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:pg71335:10:54
# text = They said: “How can such a thing as you are carry meat?”
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
7	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	9	det:predet	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	ccomp	_	_
10	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	advcl	_	_
14	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | men *= man* |  |  |  |  | such thing *ccomp* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **carry** *in a quote* | present | you | meat |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent meat=Theme |

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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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