---
title: Magoda said there was nothing. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: Magoda said there was nothing. Who acts: Magoda, nothing. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather., 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/pg71335/12/21/)

<!-- 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 Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderfu…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/12/) / 21

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather., sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Magoda said there was nothing.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Magoda, nothing · **What happens:** say, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Magoda, nothing), 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:pg71335:12:21
# text = Magoda said there was nothing.
1	Magoda	Magoda	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	4	expl	_	_
4	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
5	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Magoda |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **be** | past | nothing |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/12/20/)
- next →: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/12/22/)
- ↑ back to [The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/12/)