---
title: He stuck his assagai in the ground, and told them to look at it. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He stuck his assagai in the ground, and told them to look at it. Who acts: cannibal. 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 49

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He stuck his assagai in the ground, and told them to look at it.

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**Who acts:** cannibal · **What happens:** stick, tell, look · **To what, where:** assagai, ground, birds · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (cannibal), 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:pg71335:9:49
# text = He stuck his assagai in the ground, and told them to look at it.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	stuck	stick	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	assagai	assagai	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	ground	ground	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	look	look	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stick** | past | cannibal | cannibal's assagai |  | the ground |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent assagai=Theme in ground=Destination |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | cannibal *not said here* |  | birds *= bird* |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **look** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | cannibal *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at ground | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at it=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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