---
title: They had just finished eating the owner of the hut. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They had just finished eating the owner of the hut. Who acts: birds. 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 58

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They had just finished eating the owner of the hut.

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**Who acts:** birds · **What happens:** finish, eat · **To what, where:** owner

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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 (birds), 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:pg71335:9:58
# text = They had just finished eating the owner of the hut.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	just	just	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	finished	finish	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	xcomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	owner	owner	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **finish** | past · perfect | birds *= bird* |  |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Affector clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **eat** | gerund | birds *= bird* *not said here* | the owner of the hut |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent owner=Patient |

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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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