---
title: The girls were already very tired, so they all climbed up a tall tree. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The girls were already very tired, so they all climbed up a tall tree. Who acts: girls. 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 83

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The girls were already very tired, so they all climbed up a tall tree.

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**Who acts:** girls · **What happens:** be, climb up · **To what, where:** tall tree

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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 (girls), 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:pg71335:4:83
# text = The girls were already very tired, so they all climbed up a tall tree.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	girls	girl	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	already	already	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	tired	tired	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	so	so	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	9	det	_	_
11	climbed	climb	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
12	up	up	ADP	RP	_	11	compound:prt	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	tall	tall	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	tree	tree	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the girls |  |  |  |  | tired *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **climb up** | past | girls *= girl* | a tall tree |  |  |  |  | vn run-51.3.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location tree=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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