---
title: I am a bird that can make milk.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: I am a bird that can make milk.” Who acts: I, bird. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/3/45/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Kaffir folk-lore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/) / [Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/3/) / 45

# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I., sentence 45

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
I am a bird that can make milk.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, bird · **What happens:** be, make · **To what, where:** bird, milk

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (I, bird), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg71335:3:45
# text = I am a bird that can make milk.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
5	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	7	nsubj	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	acl:relcl	_	_
8	milk	milk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | I | a bird |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **make** | can | a bird | milk |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset milk=Product |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/3/44/)
- next →: [sentence 46](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/3/46/)
- ↑ back to [Story of the Bird That Made Milk. I.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/3/)