---
title: They dug a deep hole in the ground, and covered it with sticks and g… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They dug a deep hole in the ground, and covered it with sticks and grass. Who acts: Sods. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., sentence 32

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They dug a deep hole in the ground, and covered it with sticks and grass.

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**Who acts:** Sods · **What happens:** dig, cover · **To what, where:** deep hole, ground, hole

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sods), 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:pg71335:3:32
# text = They dug a deep hole in the ground, and covered it with sticks and grass.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	dug	dig	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	deep	deep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	covered	cover	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	grass	grass	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **dig** | past | Sods *= sod* | a deep hole |  | the ground |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent hole=Theme in ground=Location |
| 2 | **cover** | past | Sods *= sod* *not said here* | hole |  |  |  | with sticks and grass | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Destination with stick=Theme |

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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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