---
title: He said, “Mother, this food that is spilt here, whose is it?” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He said, “Mother, this food that is spilt here, whose is it?” Who acts: Kenkebe. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Another Story of Kenkebe., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, Another Story of Kenkebe., sentence 14

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He said, “Mother, this food that is spilt here, whose is it?”

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**Who acts:** Kenkebe · **What happens:** say, spilt, be · **To what, where:** Mother, food · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Another 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:pg71335:20:14
# text = He said, “Mother, this food that is spilt here, whose is it?”
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	det	_	_
8	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	appos	_	_
9	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	11	nsubj	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	spilt	spilt	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl:relcl	_	_
12	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Kenkebe | Mother |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent mother=Topic |
| 2 | **spilt** *in a quote* | present · passive |  | this food |  | here |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | food |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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