---
title: But by-and-by one of them commenced to sing these words: — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: But by-and-by one of them commenced to sing these words: Who acts: one. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Girl Who Disregarded the Custom of Ntonjane., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, Story of the Girl Who Disregarded the Custom of Ntonjane., sentence 6

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But by-and-by one of them commenced to sing these words:

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**Who acts:** one · **What happens:** commence, sing · **To what, where:** words

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, Story of the Girl Who Disregarded the Custom of Ntonjane.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one), 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:pg71335:7:6
# text = But by-and-by one of them commenced to sing these words:
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
2	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	by	by	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	10	nsubj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nmod	_	_
10	commenced	commence	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	14	det	_	_
14	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **commence** | past | one of companions |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | to-infinitive | one of companions *not said here* | this words |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location word=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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