The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 4, sentence 95

Many years ago there lived a poor old bamboo-cutter, whose great sorrow it was that Heaven had sent no child to cheer his wife and himself in their old age.

Who acts: poor old bamboo cutter · What happens: live, send, cheer, sorrow · To what, where: poor old bamboo cutter, cutter, wife, old age

This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (poor old bamboo cutter), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	Many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 years	amod
2	years	year	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 lived	obl:unmarked
3	ago	ago	ADV	_	2 years	advmod
4	there	there	ADV	PronType=Dem	5 lived	advmod
5	lived	live	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 cutter	det
7	poor	poor	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 cutter	amod
8	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	11 cutter	amod
9	bamboo	bamboo	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 cutter	compound
10	-	-	PUNCT	_	9 bamboo	punct
11	cutter	cutter	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 lived	obj
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 sorrow	punct
13	whose	whose	PRON	Poss=Yes PronType=Rel	15 sorrow	nmod:poss
14	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 sorrow	amod
15	sorrow	sorrow	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 cutter	appos
16	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 sent	nsubj:pass
17	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 sent	aux:pass
18	that	that	SCONJ	_	21 sent	mark
19	Heaven	Heaven	PROPN	Number=Sing	21 sent	nsubj
20	had	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 sent	aux
21	sent	send	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	15 sorrow	acl:relcl
22	no	no	DET	PronType=Neg	23 child	det
23	child	child	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 sent	obj
24	to	to	PART	_	25 cheer	mark
25	cheer	cheer	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	23 child	acl
26	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	27 wife	nmod:poss
27	wife	wife	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 cheer	obj
28	and	and	CCONJ	_	29 himself	cc
29	himself	himself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	27 wife	conj
30	in	in	ADP	_	33 age	case
31	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	33 age	nmod:poss
32	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	33 age	amod
33	age	age	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 cheer	obl
34	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 lived	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	live	past		a poor old bamboo cutter	there	year		vn lodge-46 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme cutter=Location
2	send	past · perfect · passive		cutter			Heaven nsubj; no child obj	tree rules
3	cheer	to-infinitive		Heaven's wife Heaven		in children's old age		vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus wife=Experiencer
4	sorrow		a poor old bamboo cutter					nom sorrow «feeling intransitive»: poss=agent

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.

Text: «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/4/95/

🌲 The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 4, sentence 95

The tree

Pragmatics

The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 4, sentence 95