---
title: His ox said: “I will fight and overcome that bull.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: His ox said: “I will fight and overcome that bull.” Who acts: ox. 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.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Wonderful Horns., sentence 5

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His ox said: “I will fight and overcome that bull.”

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**Who acts:** ox · **What happens:** say, fight, overcome · **To what, where:** bull · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (ox), 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:pg71335:21:5
# text = His ox said: “I will fight and overcome that bull.”
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	ox	ox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
5	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	fight	fight	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	overcome	overcome	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
11	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	12	det	_	_
12	bull	bull	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	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 | boy's ox |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **fight** *in a quote* | future | boy's ox *= ox* |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **overcome** *in a quote* | infinitive | boy's ox *= ox* *not said here* | that bull |  |  |  |  | vn exceed-90 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot bull=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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