---
title: His wife said to him: “Why do you cry as if you were a child?” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: His wife said to him: “Why do you cry as if you were a child?” Who acts: wife, 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/19/55/)

<!-- 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/) / 55

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Kenkebe., sentence 55

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
His wife said to him: “Why do you cry as if you were a child?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** wife, Kenkebe · **What happens:** say, cry, be · **To what, where:** Kenkebe · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .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 (wife, Kenkebe), 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:pg71335:19:55
# text = His wife said to him: “Why do you cry as if you were a child?”
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
9	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	cry	cry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
12	as	as	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	17	case	_	_
13	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	12	fixed	_	_
14	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
15	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	17	cop	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Kenkebe's wife |  | Kenkebe |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to he=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **cry** *speech: express* *in a quote* | present · do-support | Kenkebe |  |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | past | Kenkebe |  |  |  |  | as a child | tree rules |

<!-- .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 54](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/19/54/)
- next →: [sentence 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/19/56/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Kenkebe.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/19/)