---
title: Kaffir boys above the age of nine or ten years are fond of shamfight… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: Kaffir boys above the age of nine or ten years are fond of shamfighting with sticks. Who acts: Kaffir boys. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 13

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Kaffir boys above the age of nine or ten years are fond of shamfighting with sticks.

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**Who acts:** Kaffir boys · **What happens:** be

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Kaffir boys), 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:pg71335:32:13
# text = Kaffir boys above the age of nine or ten years are fond of shamfighting with sticks.
1	Kaffir	Kaffir	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	compound	_	_
2	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
3	above	above	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	age	age	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	nine	nine	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nummod	_	_
8	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
9	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	7	conj	_	_
10	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	_
11	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	fond	fond	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	shamfighting	shamfighting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
15	with	with	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Kaffir boys above the age of nine years |  |  |  |  | of shamfighting with sticks; fond *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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- ← previous: [sentence 12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/32/12/)
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- ↑ back to [The Story of Sikulume.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/32/)