---
title: The woman took a small piece of wood and cleaned her ears. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The woman took a small piece of wood and cleaned her ears. Who acts: woman. 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 9

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The woman took a small piece of wood and cleaned her ears.

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**Who acts:** woman · **What happens:** take, clean · **To what, where:** small piece, ears

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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 (woman), 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:pg71335:10:9
# text = The woman took a small piece of wood and cleaned her ears.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	cleaned	clean	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
11	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | the woman | a small piece of wood |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent piece=Theme |
| 2 | **clean** | past | the woman *not said here* | voice's ears |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent ear=Patient |

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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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