---
title: They were near their grandfather’s village, and were very weak when… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They were near their grandfather’s village, and were very weak when their mother overtook them. Who acts: children, mother. 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/pg71335/15/48/)

<!-- 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/) / 48

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., sentence 48

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They were near their grandfather’s village, and were very weak when their mother overtook them.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** children, mother · **What happens:** be, overtake · **To what, where:** village, children

<!-- .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 (children, mother), 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:pg71335:15:48
# text = They were near their grandfather’s village, and were very weak when their mother overtook them.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
3	near	near	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	grandfather	grandfather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’s	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	village	village	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
10	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
11	very	very	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	weak	weak	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	_
13	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
14	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	overtook	overtake	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	advcl	_	_
17	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | children *= child* |  |  | children's grandfather's village |  | children's grandfather *nmod:poss* | tree rules |
| 2 | **is** | past | children *= child* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | weak *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **overtake** | past | children's mother | children *= child* |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .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 47](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/47/)
- next →: [sentence 49](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/49/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/)