---
title: There was a little hole in the thatch, and through this he forced hi… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: There was a little hole in the thatch, and through this he forced his way. Who acts: little hole, Zim. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Demane and Demazana., 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/pg71335/11/41/)

<!-- 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 Demane and Demazana.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/11/) / 41

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Demane and Demazana., sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was a little hole in the thatch, and through this he forced his way.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** little hole, Zim · **What happens:** be, force · **To what, where:** way, this

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Demane and Demazana.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (little hole, Zim), 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:pg71335:11:41
# text = There was a little hole in the thatch, and through this he forced his way.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	thatch	thatch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	through	through	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	14	obl	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	forced	force	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a little hole in the thatch |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **force** | past | Zim | Zim's way |  | this |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Recipient |

<!-- .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 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/11/40/)
- next →: [sentence 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/11/42/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Demane and Demazana.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/11/)