---
title: There was once a widow woman who had one son and two daughters. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: There was once a widow woman who had one son and two daughters. Who acts: widow woman. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Girl and the Mbulu., 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/pg71335/16/1/)

<!-- 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/) / [Story of the Girl and the Mbulu.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/16/) / 1

# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Girl and the Mbulu., sentence 1

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There was once a widow woman who had one son and two daughters.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** widow woman · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** one son

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Girl and the Mbulu.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (widow woman), 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:pg71335:16:1
# text = There was once a widow woman who had one son and two daughters.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	2	advmod	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	widow	widow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
7	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
9	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
10	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	13	nummod	_	_
13	daughters	daughter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | a widow woman |  |  | there |  | once *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | past | a widow woman | one son and two daughters |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent son=Patient |

<!-- .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: [The Story of the Cannibal Mo…, 82](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/15/82/)
- next →: [sentence 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/16/2/)
- ↑ back to [Story of the Girl and the Mbulu.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/16/)