---
title: He sat down before the door and told her to bring his food. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He sat down before the door and told her to bring his food. Who acts: wind. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Five Heads., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/5/68/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Kaffir folk-lore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/) / [The Story of Five Heads.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/5/) / 68

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Five Heads., sentence 68

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He sat down before the door and told her to bring his food.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** wind · **What happens:** sit down, tell, bring · **To what, where:** door, Mpunzikazi, food · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Five Heads.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wind), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg71335:5:68
# text = He sat down before the door and told her to bring his food.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	down	down	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	before	before	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
9	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	iobj	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit down** | past | wind |  |  | the door |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent before door=Location |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | wind *not said here* |  | Mpunzikazi |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent she=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **bring** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | wind *not said here* | wind's food |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent food=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 67](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/5/67/)
- next →: [sentence 69](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/5/69/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Five Heads.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/5/)