---
title: Then the doves scratched her knees till the blood flowed, and put th… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the doves scratched her knees till the blood flowed, and put the blood in the jars. Who acts: doves, blood. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Mbulukazi., 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/pg71335/17/12/)

<!-- 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 Mbulukazi.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/17/) / 12

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Mbulukazi., sentence 12

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Then the doves scratched her knees till the blood flowed, and put the blood in the jars.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** doves, blood · **What happens:** scratch, flow, put · **To what, where:** knees, blood, jars

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Mbulukazi.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (doves, blood), 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:pg71335:17:12
# text = Then the doves scratched her knees till the blood flowed, and put the blood in the jars.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	doves	dove	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	scratched	scratch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	knees	knee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	till	till	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	flowed	flow	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	put	put	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	advcl	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	blood	blood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	jars	jar	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **scratch** | past | the doves | Numbakatali's knees |  |  | then |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent knee=Theme |
| 2 | **flow** | past | the blood |  |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **put** | infinitive | the blood *not said here* | the blood |  | the jars |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent blood=Theme in jar=Destination |

<!-- .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 11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/17/11/)
- next →: [sentence 13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/17/13/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Mbulukazi.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/17/)