---
title: In the evening, when the digging companies returned home, they retur… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: In the evening, when the digging companies returned home, they returned also. Who acts: digging companies, companies. 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 8

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In the evening, when the digging companies returned home, they returned also.

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**Who acts:** digging companies, companies · **What happens:** return

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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 (digging companies, companies), 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:pg71335:4:8
# text = In the evening, when the digging companies returned home, they returned also.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	9	advmod	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	digging	digging	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	companies	company	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nsubj	_	_
9	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	home	home	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	returned	return	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
14	also	also	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **return** | past | the digging companies |  |  |  | evening | home *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **return** | past | companies *= company* |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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