---
title: He came to a house, and asked to be entertained. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He came to a house, and asked to be entertained. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Wonderful Horns., 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/pg71335/21/27/)

<!-- 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/) / [Story of the Wonderful Horns.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/21/) / 27

# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Wonderful Horns., sentence 27

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He came to a house, and asked to be entertained.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** come, ask, be · **To what, where:** house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Wonderful Horns.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg71335:21:27
# text = He came to a house, and asked to be entertained.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	cop	_	_
11	entertained	entertained	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | boy |  |  | a house |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to house=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | entertained *property* | 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 26](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/21/26/)
- next →: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/21/28/)
- ↑ back to [Story of the Wonderful Horns.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/21/)