---
title: He broke it in two and gave half to his mother. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He broke it in two and gave half to his mother. Who acts: Kenkebe. 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 37

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He broke it in two and gave half to his mother.

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**Who acts:** Kenkebe · **What happens:** break, give · **To what, where:** same, two, half, mother

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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 (Kenkebe), 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:pg71335:19:37
# text = He broke it in two and gave half to his mother.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	obl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	half	half	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing|NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac	7	obj	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** | past | Kenkebe | same |  | two |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer it=Patient |
| 2 | **give** | past | Kenkebe *not said here* | half | Kenkebe's mother |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent half=Theme to mother=Recipient |

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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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- ↑ back to [The Story of Kenkebe.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/19/)