Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Chinese Tea-house Story, sentence 38
He asked, “Who is the prisoner?” and was told, “An official by the name of Pai.”
Who acts: crowd · What happens: ask, be, tell, name · To what, where: prisoner, Pai · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Chinese Tea-house Story. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (crowd), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 asked | nsubj |
| 2 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 8 prisoner | punct |
| 4 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 8 prisoner | punct |
| 5 | Who | who | PRON | PronType=Rel | 8 prisoner | nsubj |
| 6 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 8 prisoner | cop |
| 7 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 8 prisoner | det |
| 8 | prisoner | prisoner | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 asked | ccomp |
| 9 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 8 prisoner | punct |
| 10 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 8 prisoner | punct |
| 11 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 13 told | cc |
| 12 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 13 told | aux:pass |
| 13 | told | tell | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 2 asked | conj |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 17 official | punct |
| 15 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 17 official | punct |
| 16 | An | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 17 official | det |
| 17 | official | official | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 2 asked | parataxis |
| 18 | by | by | ADP | _ | 20 name | case |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 name | det |
| 20 | name | name | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 official | obl |
| 21 | of | of | ADP | _ | 22 Pai | case |
| 22 | Pai | Pai | PROPN | Number=Sing | 20 name | nmod |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 17 official | punct |
| 24 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 2 asked | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ask speech: ask | past | crowd | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 2 | is a in a quote | present | the prisoner | Who nsubj | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | tell speech: assert | past · passive | crowd not said here | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V» | |||||
| 4 | name in a quote | Pai | nom name «communication transitive»: of=patient |
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: «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Project Gutenberg book 75089 (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/pg75089/10/38/