---
title: Then the bird began to sing its song. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the bird began to sing its song. Who acts: bird. 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/pg71335/15/57/)

<!-- 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/) / 57

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., sentence 57

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then the bird began to sing its song.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** bird · **What happens:** begin, sing · **To what, where:** song

<!-- .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 (bird), 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:pg71335:15:57
# text = Then the bird began to sing its song.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | the bird |  |  |  | then |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | to-infinitive | the bird *not said here* | bird's song |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location song=Theme |
| 3 | **sing** |  | bird |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .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 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/56/)
- next →: [sentence 58](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/58/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/)