---
title: The bird came slowly towards her, still singing its song. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The bird came slowly towards her, still singing 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.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Cannibal Mother and Her Children., sentence 61

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The bird came slowly towards her, still singing its song.

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**Who acts:** bird · **What happens:** come, sing · **To what, where:** song

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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 (bird), 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:pg71335:15:61
# text = The bird came slowly towards her, still singing its song.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	slowly	slowly	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	towards	towards	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
8	still	still	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
10	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the bird |  |  |  |  | towards valley; slowly *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme towards she=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | the bird *not said here* | bird's song |  |  | still |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location song=Theme |
| 3 | **sing** |  | bird |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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