---
title: While we were roasting wild roots A great darkness fell upon us. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: While we were roasting wild roots A great darkness fell upon us. Who acts: we, great darkness. 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 88

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While we were roasting wild roots A great darkness fell upon us.

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**Who acts:** we, great darkness · **What happens:** roast, fall · **To what, where:** wild roots

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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 (we, great darkness), 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:pg71335:4:88
# text = While we were roasting wild roots A great darkness fell upon us.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	roasting	roast	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	10	advcl	_	_
5	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	roots	root	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	upon	upon	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **roast** | past · progressive | we | wild roots |  |  |  |  | vn cooking-45.3 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent root=Patient |
| 2 | **fall** | past | a great darkness |  |  |  |  | upon us | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme upon we=Location |

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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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