---
title: The boy got off his ox’s back. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The boy got off his ox’s back. 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/pg71335/21/6/)

<!-- 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/) / 6

# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Wonderful Horns., sentence 6

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The boy got off his ox’s back.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** get off

<!-- .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:pg71335:21:6
# text = The boy got off his ox’s back.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	off	off	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	ox	ox	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
8	back	back	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get off** | past | the boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

<!-- .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 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/21/5/)
- next →: [sentence 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/21/7/)
- ↑ back to [Story of the Wonderful Horns.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/21/)