---
title: He tries to imitate as closely as possible the animal he is represen… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He tries to imitate as closely as possible the animal he is representing. Who acts: animal. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume., 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/pg71335/32/20/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Story of Sikulume.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/32/) / 20

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 20

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He tries to imitate as closely as possible the animal he is representing.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** animal · **What happens:** try, imitate, represent · **To what, where:** animal

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (animal), 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:pg71335:32:20
# text = He tries to imitate as closely as possible the animal he is representing.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tries	try	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	imitate	imitate	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	as	as	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	closely	closely	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
7	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
8	possible	possible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	advcl	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
11	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	representing	represent	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | present | animal |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **imitate** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | animal *not said here* | the animal |  |  |  | closely *property* | vn patent-101 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent animal=Theme |
| 3 | **represent** | present · progressive | animal | the animal *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn representation-110.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot animal=Theme |

<!-- .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 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/32/19/)
- next →: [sentence 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/32/21/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Sikulume.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/32/)