---
title: After they had crossed, Ironside struck the river with his iron rod,… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: After they had crossed, Ironside struck the river with his iron rod, and said: “River, I have found my sister. Who acts: cannibals, Ironside. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/13/41/)

<!-- 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/) / [Story of Ironside and His Sister.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/13/) / 41

# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of Ironside and His Sister., sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
After they had crossed, Ironside struck the river with his iron rod, and said: “River, I have found my sister.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cannibals, Ironside · **What happens:** cross, strike, say, find · **To what, where:** river, sister · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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: who acts (cannibals, Ironside), 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:pg71335:13:41
# text = After they had crossed, Ironside struck the river with his iron rod, and said: “River, I have found my sister.
1	After	after	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	crossed	cross	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	Ironside	Ironside	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
12	iron	iron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	compound	_	_
13	rod	rod	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	19	punct	_	_
18	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	River	River	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
21	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
22	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	found	find	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	19	acl	_	_
24	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	sister	sister	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cross** | past · perfect | cannibals *= cannibal* |  |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **strike** | past | Ironside | the river |  |  |  | with Ironside's iron rod | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent river=Patient with rod=Instrument |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Ironside *not said here* | River |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent river=Topic |
| 4 | **find** *in a quote* | present · perfect | Ironside | my sister |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sister=Topic |

<!-- .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/pg71335/13/40/)
- next →: [sentence 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/13/42/)
- ↑ back to [Story of Ironside and His Sister.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/13/)