Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Chinese Tea-house Story, sentence 40
“How can you ask that?” replied the man, “when Yen Sung is the head of the Empire.
Who acts: you, man, Yen Sung · What happens: ask, reply, be · To what, where: that, head · 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 (you, man, Yen Sung), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 ask | punct |
| 2 | How | how | ADV | PronType=Int | 5 ask | advmod |
| 3 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 5 ask | aux |
| 4 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 5 ask | nsubj |
| 5 | ask | ask | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 9 replied | ccomp |
| 6 | that | that | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 5 ask | obj |
| 7 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 5 ask | punct |
| 8 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 ask | punct |
| 9 | replied | reply | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 man | det |
| 11 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 replied | obj |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 head | punct |
| 13 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 19 head | punct |
| 14 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 19 head | advmod |
| 15 | Yen | Yen | PROPN | Number=Sing | 16 Sung | compound |
| 16 | Sung | Sung | PROPN | Number=Sing | 19 head | nsubj |
| 17 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 19 head | cop |
| 18 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 19 head | det |
| 19 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 man | appos |
| 20 | of | of | ADP | _ | 22 Empire | case |
| 21 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 22 Empire | det |
| 22 | Empire | Empire | PROPN | Number=Sing | 19 head | nmod |
| 23 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 9 replied | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ask speech: ask in a quote | can | you | that | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent that=Recipient | ||||
| 2 | reply speech: ask | past | the man | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 3 | is a in a quote | present | Yen Sung | the head | of the Empire | tree rules |
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/pg75089/10/40/