---
title: A voice was heard saying: — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: A voice was heard saying: Who acts: voice. 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 58

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A voice was heard saying:

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**Who acts:** voice · **What happens:** hear, say · **To what, where:** voice · **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: who acts (voice), 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:pg71335:6:58
# text = A voice was heard saying:
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	saying	say	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past · passive |  | a voice |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | a voice *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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