---
title: The bird would not listen to her, but continued its song. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The bird would not listen to her, but continued 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 67

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The bird would not listen to her, but continued its song.

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**Who acts:** bird · **What happens:** not listen, continue, sing · **To what, where:** mother, 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:pg71335:15:67
# text = The bird would not listen to her, but continued its song.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	continued	continue	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	parataxis	_	_
11	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **listen** | would | the bird |  | mother |  |  |  | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent to she=Theme |
| 2 | **continue** | past |  | bird's song |  |  |  |  | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent 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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