---
title: “Let this be instead of my child.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: “Let this be instead of my child.” Who acts: you, this. 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 57

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“Let this be instead of my child.”

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**Who acts:** you, this · **What happens:** let, be · **To what, where:** this

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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: who acts (you, this), 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:pg71335:6:57
# text = “Let this be instead of my child.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Let	let	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	obj	_	_
4	be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	instead	instead	ADV	RB	ExtPos=ADP	8	case	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	fixed	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **let** *in a quote* | imperative | you *not said here* | this |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **be** *in a quote* | infinitive | this *not said here* |  |  |  |  | instead my child | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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- ↑ back to [The Story of Tangalimlibo.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/6/)