---
title: He took blood and smeared it on one of the boys who was sleeping. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He took blood and smeared it on one of the boys who was sleeping. Who acts: boy, boys. 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 92

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He took blood and smeared it on one of the boys who was sleeping.

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**Who acts:** boy, boys · **What happens:** take, smear, sleep · **To what, where:** blood

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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 (boy, boys), 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:pg71335:10:92
# text = He took blood and smeared it on one of the boys who was sleeping.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	smeared	smear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obj	_	_
7	on	on	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	obl	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
12	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	sleeping	sleep	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	11	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | boy | blood |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent blood=Theme |
| 2 | **smear** | past | boy *not said here* | blood |  |  |  | on one of the boys | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Theme on one=Destination |
| 3 | **sleep** | past · progressive | the boys |  |  |  |  |  | vn snooze-40.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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