---
title: Their grandfather said: “Ho! will you be able to come back? — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: Their grandfather said: “Ho! will you be able to come back? Who acts: grandfather, Ho. 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 5

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Their grandfather said: “Ho! will you be able to come back?

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**Who acts:** grandfather, Ho · **What happens:** say, be, come back · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (grandfather, Ho), 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:pg71335:15:5
# text = Their grandfather said: “Ho! will you be able to come back?
1	Their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	grandfather	grandfather	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
5	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	Ho	Ho	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
8	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	cop	_	_
11	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	ccomp	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	xcomp	_	_
14	back	back	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	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 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | children's grandfather |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | future | Ho |  |  |  |  | you *nsubj*; able *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **come back** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Ho *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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