---
title: They use mats as we use dishes, to eat from. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They use mats as we use dishes, to eat from. Who acts: Kaffirs, we. 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 20

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They use mats as we use dishes, to eat from.

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**Who acts:** Kaffirs, we · **What happens:** use, eat · **To what, where:** mats, dishes

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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 (Kaffirs, we), 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:pg71335:27:20
# text = They use mats as we use dishes, to eat from.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	use	use	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	mats	mat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	use	use	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
7	dishes	dish	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	eat	eat	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
11	from	from	ADP	IN	_	10	obl	_	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 | **use** | present | Kaffirs *= kaffir* | mats |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent mat=Patient |
| 2 | **use** | present | we | dishes |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent dish=Patient |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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