---
title: The cunning little fellow pretended to be astonished. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The cunning little fellow pretended to be astonished. Who acts: cunning little fellow. 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 78

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The cunning little fellow pretended to be astonished.

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**Who acts:** cunning little fellow · **What happens:** pretend, astonish

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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 (cunning little fellow), 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:pg71335:10:78
# text = The cunning little fellow pretended to be astonished.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	cunning	cunning	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	fellow	fellow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	astonished	astonish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pretend** | past | the cunning little fellow |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **astonish** | to-infinitive · passive | the cunning little fellow *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle» |

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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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