---
title: “Go home; I will stay behind to watch and find the thing which eats… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: “Go home; I will stay behind to watch and find the thing which eats our work.” Who acts: you, Masilo, thing, our. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II., sentence 23

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“Go home; I will stay behind to watch and find the thing which eats our work.”

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**Who acts:** you, Masilo, thing, our · **What happens:** go, stay, watch, find, eat, work · **To what, where:** thing, work

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of the Bird That Made Milk. II.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, Masilo, thing, our), 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:pg71335:4:23
# text = “Go home; I will stay behind to watch and find the thing which eats our work.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Go	go	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	home	home	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	stay	stay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
8	behind	behind	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	watch	watch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	nsubj	_	_
16	eats	eat	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	acl:relcl	_	_
17	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** *in a quote* | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  | home *property* | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **stay** *in a quote* | future | Masilo |  |  |  |  | behind *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **watch** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Masilo *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn search-35.2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **find** *in a quote* | infinitive | Masilo *not said here* | the thing |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Topic |
| 5 | **eat** *in a quote* | present | the thing | our work |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent work=Patient |
| 6 | **work** *in a quote* |  | our |  |  |  |  |  | nom work «act intransitive»: poss=agent |

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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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