---
title: He said to them: “I can turn this stone into a hut.” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: He said to them: “I can turn this stone into a hut.” Who acts: man. 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 75

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He said to them: “I can turn this stone into a hut.”

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** say, turn · **To what, where:** hands, stone, hut · **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 (man), 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:pg71335:9:75
# text = He said to them: “I can turn this stone into a hut.”
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	turn	turn	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
10	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	11	det	_	_
11	stone	stone	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	_
12	into	into	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	hut	hut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | man |  | hands *= hand* |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to they=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **turn** *in a quote* | can | man | this stone |  | a hut |  |  | vn roll-51.3.1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent stone=Theme into hut=Trajectory |

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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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