---
title: Sikulume said: “Where is my father?” — Kaffir folk-lore · tree and pragmatics
description: Sikulume said: “Where is my father?” Who acts: Sikulume. A sentence of «Kaffir folk-lore» by George McCall Theal, The Story of Sikulume., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/9/86/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Kaffir folk-lore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/) / [The Story of Sikulume.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/9/) / 86

# Kaffir folk-lore, The Story of Sikulume., sentence 86

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Sikulume said: “Where is my father?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Sikulume · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** father · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Sikulume), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg71335:9:86
# text = Sikulume said: “Where is my father?”
1	Sikulume	Sikulume	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	Where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	8	advmod	_	_
6	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | Sikulume |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | my father |  |  |  | my *nmod:poss* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 85](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/9/85/)
- next →: [sentence 87](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/9/87/)
- ↑ back to [The Story of Sikulume.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg71335/9/)