---
title: They said: “You can go, but come back quickly.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They said: “You can go, but come back quickly.” Who acts: cannibals, You. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Kenkebe., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Kenkebe., sentence 115

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They said: “You can go, but come back quickly.”

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**Who acts:** cannibals, You · **What happens:** say, go, come back · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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, You), 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:pg71335:19:115
# text = They said: “You can go, but come back quickly.”
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
11	back	back	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | cannibals *= cannibal* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **go** *in a quote* | can | You |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **come back** *in a quote* | infinitive | You *not said here* |  |  |  |  | quickly *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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