---
title: Masilo answered: “You must bring back the work of my hands first.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: Masilo answered: “You must bring back the work of my hands first.” Who acts: Masilo, You, hands. 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 32

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Masilo answered: “You must bring back the work of my hands first.”

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**Who acts:** Masilo, You, hands · **What happens:** answer, bring back, work · **To what, where:** work · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Masilo, You, hands), 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:pg71335:4:32
# text = Masilo answered: “You must bring back the work of my hands first.”
1	Masilo	Masilo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
6	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
8	back	back	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	work	work	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	hands	hand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	_
14	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | Masilo |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **bring back** *in a quote* | must | You | the work of my hands |  |  |  | first *property* | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent work=Theme |
| 3 | **work** *in a quote* |  | my hands |  |  |  |  |  | nom work «act intransitive»: of=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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