---
title: It was at best a clumsy tool. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: It was at best a clumsy tool. Who acts: implement. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Bird That Made Milk., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk., sentence 11

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It was at best a clumsy tool.

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**Who acts:** implement · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** clumsy tool

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Bird That Made Milk.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (implement), 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:pg71335:27:11
# text = It was at best a clumsy tool.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	best	well	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	7	advmod	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	clumsy	clumsy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	tool	tool	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | implement |  |  | a clumsy tool |  | well *property* | 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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