---
title: They had all long tails and topknots on their heads. — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: They had all long tails and topknots on their heads. 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 7

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They had all long tails and topknots on their heads.

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**Who acts:** birds · **What happens:** have · **To what, where:** long tails, heads

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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:pg71335:9:7
# text = They had all long tails and topknots on their heads.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	all	all	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	tails	tail	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	topknots	topknot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	heads	head	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | birds *= bird* | long tails and topknots |  | birds's heads |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent tail=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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