---
title: They sat together in a big house, and drank very much beer. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They sat together in a big house, and drank very much beer. Who acts: cannibals. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Kenkebe., 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/pg71335/19/113/)

<!-- 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 Kenkebe.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/19/) / 113

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Kenkebe., sentence 113

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They sat together in a big house, and drank very much beer.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** cannibals · **What happens:** sit, drink · **To what, where:** big house, much beer

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Kenkebe.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (cannibals), 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:pg71335:19:113
# text = They sat together in a big house, and drank very much beer.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	together	together	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	drank	drink	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	very	very	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	much	much	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	beer	beer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past | cannibals *= cannibal* |  |  | a big house |  | together *property* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent in house=Location |
| 2 | **drink** | past | cannibals *= cannibal* *not said here* | much beer |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent beer=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: [sentence 112](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/19/112/)
- next →: [sentence 114](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/19/114/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Kenkebe.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/19/)