---
title: It said to the porcupine: “Let us run a race against each other.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: It said to the porcupine: “Let us run a race against each other.” Who acts: porcupine, us. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Hare., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Hare., sentence 40

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It said to the porcupine: “Let us run a race against each other.”

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**Who acts:** porcupine, us · **What happens:** say, let, run · **To what, where:** porcupine, us, race, each · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Hare.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (porcupine, us), 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:pg71335:24:40
# text = It said to the porcupine: “Let us run a race against each other.”
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|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	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	porcupine	porcupine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	Let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
9	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	run	run	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	race	race	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	against	against	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	10	obl	_	_
15	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	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 | porcupine |  | the porcupine |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to porcupine=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **let** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | us |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **run** *in a quote* | infinitive | us *not said here* | a race |  | each |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent race=Theme against each=Trajectory |

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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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