---
title: They lay down, but the man and the children only pretended to go to… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They lay down, but the man and the children only pretended to go to sleep. Who acts: dancing, man. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., 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/pg71335/15/33/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Story of the Cannibal Mother and H…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/) / 33

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., sentence 33

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They lay down, but the man and the children only pretended to go to sleep.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** dancing, man · **What happens:** lay down, pretend, go · **To what, where:** sleep

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dancing, man), 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:pg71335:15:33
# text = They lay down, but the man and the children only pretended to go to sleep.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	lay	lay	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	down	down	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
5	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	conj	_	_
11	only	only	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	pretended	pretend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	xcomp	_	_
15	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	sleep	sleep	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay down** | present | dancing |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **pretend** | past | the man and the children |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **go** | to-infinitive | the man and the children *not said here* |  |  | sleep |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to sleep=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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 32](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/32/)
- next →: [sentence 34](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/34/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/)