---
title: She smelt that children had been in the house, so she went to her so… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: She smelt that children had been in the house, so she went to her son’s house and looked in. Who acts: Nomagoda, children. 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.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Runaway Children; Or, the Wonderful Feather., sentence 28

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She smelt that children had been in the house, so she went to her son’s house and looked in.

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**Who acts:** Nomagoda, children · **What happens:** smelt, be, go, look in · **To what, where:** house

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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 (Nomagoda, children), 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:pg71335:12:28
# text = She smelt that children had been in the house, so she went to her son’s house and looked in.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	smelt	smelt	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
4	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
5	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
6	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	cop	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	so	so	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
12	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
14	to	to	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	’s	's	PART	POS	_	16	case	_	_
18	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	looked	look	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	conj	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	RP	_	20	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **smelt** | past | Nomagoda |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past · perfect | children |  |  | the house |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go** | past | Nomagoda |  |  | Nomagoda's son's house |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to house=Initial\_Location |
| 4 | **look in** | past | Nomagoda *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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