---
title: The cleverest of them sometimes practise tricks of deception with gr… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The cleverest of them sometimes practise tricks of deception with grains of maize. Who acts: cleverest. 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 30

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The cleverest of them sometimes practise tricks of deception with grains of maize.

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**Who acts:** cleverest · **What happens:** practise, trick · **To what, where:** tricks, deception

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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 (cleverest), 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:pg71335:32:30
# text = The cleverest of them sometimes practise tricks of deception with grains of maize.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	cleverest	clever	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	6	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nmod	_	_
5	sometimes	sometimes	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	6	advmod	_	_
6	practise	practise	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	tricks	trick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	deception	deception	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	grains	grain	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	maize	maize	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **practise** | present | the cleverest of boys | tricks of deception with grains of maize |  |  |  | sometimes *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **trick** |  |  | deception with grains of maize |  |  |  |  | nom trick «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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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