---
title: They told the chief that the hare had eaten the tail. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They told the chief that the hare had eaten the tail. Who acts: tails. 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 72

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They told the chief that the hare had eaten the tail.

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**Who acts:** tails · **What happens:** tell, eat · **To what, where:** chief, hare · **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 (tails), 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:pg71335:24:72
# text = They told the chief that the hare had eaten the tail.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	chief	chief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	iobj	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	hare	hare	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	eaten	eat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	ccomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | tails *= tail* |  | the chief |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent chief=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **eat** | past · perfect · passive |  | the hare |  |  |  | the tail *obj* | 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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