---
title: So they gave him meat, and he said: “Sing, my bird.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: So they gave him meat, and he said: “Sing, my bird.” Who acts: boys, cannibal. 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 22

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So they gave him meat, and he said: “Sing, my bird.”

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**Who acts:** boys, cannibal · **What happens:** give, say · **To what, where:** meat, cannibal · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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, cannibal), 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:pg71335:14:22
# text = So they gave him meat, and he said: “Sing, my bird.”
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
11	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Sing	sing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past | boys *= boy* | meat | cannibal |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient meat=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | cannibal |  |  |  |  | Sing and my bird *nsubj* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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