---
title: But the bird said: “No, I do not want millet.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: But the bird said: “No, I do not want millet.” Who acts: bird. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Tangalimlibo., 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/pg71335/6/5/)

<!-- 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 Tangalimlibo.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/6/) / 5

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Tangalimlibo., sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But the bird said: “No, I do not want millet.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** bird · **What happens:** say, not want · **To what, where:** millet · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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: who acts (bird), 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:pg71335:6:5
# text = But the bird said: “No, I do not want millet.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	No	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	12	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
10	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	12	advmod	_	_
12	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
13	millet	millet	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the bird |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **want** *in a quote* | present · do-support | the bird *= bird* | millet |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Pivot millet=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 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/6/4/)
- next →: [sentence 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/6/6/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Tangalimlibo.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/6/)