---
title: It can assume the human form, but cannot part with its tail. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: It can assume the human form, but cannot part with its tail. Who acts: mbulu. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Girl and the Mbulu., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Girl and the Mbulu., sentence 2

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It can assume the human form, but cannot part with its tail.

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**Who acts:** mbulu · **What happens:** assume · **To what, where:** human form

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Girl and the Mbulu.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (mbulu), 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:pg71335:36:2
# text = It can assume the human form, but cannot part with its tail.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	assume	assume	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	human	human	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	form	form	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
9	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	_
12	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
14	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **assume** | can | mbulu | the human form |  |  |  | part with mbulu's tail *parataxis* | vn adopt-93.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent form=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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