---
title: The boys set off to follow those beautiful birds. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: The boys set off to follow those beautiful birds. Who acts: boys. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 20

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The boys set off to follow those beautiful birds.

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**Who acts:** boys · **What happens:** set off, follow · **To what, where:** beautiful birds

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This is a sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boys), 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:pg71335:9:20
# text = The boys set off to follow those beautiful birds.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	off	off	ADP	RP	_	3	compound:prt	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	follow	follow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
7	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	9	det	_	_
8	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **set off** | past | the boys |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **follow** | to-infinitive | the boys *not said here* | that beautiful birds |  |  |  |  | vn chase-51.6 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent bird=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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