---
title: “Why are the people at Masilo’s house so fat? — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: “Why are the people at Masilo’s house so fat? 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 47

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“Why are the people at Masilo’s house so fat?

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**What happens:** be · **To what, where:** people, house

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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: 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:pg71335:4:47
# text = “Why are the people at Masilo’s house so fat?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	Masilo	Masilo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’s	's	PART	POS	_	7	case	_	_
9	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
10	so	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	fat	fat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | the people |  | Masilo's house |  |  | tree rules |

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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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