---
title: About midday there came two birds and flew away with the girl. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: About midday there came two birds and flew away with the girl. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of Ironside and His Sister., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of Ironside and His Sister., sentence 2

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About midday there came two birds and flew away with the girl.

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**What happens:** come, fly away · **To what, where:** two birds

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of Ironside and His Sister.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg71335:13:2
# text = About midday there came two birds and flew away with the girl.
1	About	about	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	midday	midday	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
3	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	6	nummod	_	_
6	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	away	away	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past |  | two birds |  |  |  | about midday | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location bird=Theme |
| 2 | **fly away** | past |  |  |  |  |  | with the girl; away *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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