---
title: The girl fell down, and the cannibal caught her and swallowed her. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The girl fell down, and the cannibal caught her and swallowed her. Who acts: girl, cannibal. 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.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., sentence 49

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The girl fell down, and the cannibal caught her and swallowed her.

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**Who acts:** girl, cannibal · **What happens:** fall down, catch, swallow · **To what, where:** girl

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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 (girl, 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:pg71335:15:49
# text = The girl fell down, and the cannibal caught her and swallowed her.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	down	down	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	cannibal	cannibal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
9	caught	catch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
10	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	swallowed	swallow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
13	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fall down** | past | the girl |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **catch** | past | the cannibal | girl |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=Theme |
| 3 | **swallow** | past | the cannibal *not said here* | girl |  |  |  |  | vn gobble-39.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=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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