---
title: “My dear wife, you should have told me of this before.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: “My dear wife, you should have told me of this before.” A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Tangalimlibo., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Tangalimlibo., sentence 16

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“My dear wife, you should have told me of this before.”

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**What happens:** tell · **To what, where:** dear wife, father · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Tangalimlibo.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg71335:6:16
# text = “My dear wife, you should have told me of this before.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
3	dear	dear	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
7	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	aux	_	_
9	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
10	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	obl	_	_
13	before	before	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	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 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | should · perfect · passive |  | My dear wife | father |  |  | of this; you *nsubj:pass*; before *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient i=Topic |

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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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