---
title: He said: “You shall not be my wife,” and he struck her with his tail… — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He said: “You shall not be my wife,” and he struck her with his tail and killed her. Who acts: Makanda, You. 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/pg71335/5/71/)

<!-- 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/) / 71

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Five Heads., sentence 71

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He said: “You shall not be my wife,” and he struck her with his tail and killed her.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Makanda, You · **What happens:** say, not be, strike, kill · **To what, where:** wife · **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 (Makanda, You), 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:pg71335:5:71
# text = He said: “You shall not be my wife,” and he struck her with his tail and killed her.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
6	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	cop	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
16	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
20	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
21	killed	kill	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
22	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Makanda |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **is a** *in a quote* | shall | You | my wife |  |  |  | my *nmod:poss* | tree rules |
| 3 | **strike** | past | Makanda | wife |  |  |  | with Makanda's tail | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent she=Patient with tail=Instrument |
| 4 | **kill** | past | Makanda *not said here* | wife |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent she=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 70](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/5/70/)
- next →: [sentence 72](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/5/72/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Five Heads.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/5/)