---
title: The boys took meat, and went away from the village to eat it. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The boys took meat, and went away from the village to eat it. Who acts: boys. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird., sentence 19

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The boys took meat, and went away from the village to eat it.

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**Who acts:** boys · **What happens:** take, go away, eat · **To what, where:** meat, village

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Cannibal’s Wonderful Bird.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boys), 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:pg71335:14:19
# text = The boys took meat, and went away from the village to eat it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
8	away	away	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	from	from	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	village	village	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | past | the boys | meat |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent meat=Theme |
| 2 | **go away** | past | the boys *not said here* |  |  | the village |  | away *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme from village=Initial\_Location |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | the boys *not said here* | meat |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |

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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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