Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Chinese Tea-house Story, sentence 67

Why do I sit every night, hour after hour, with my tongue pressed against the roof of my mouth, my hands and feet crossed, trying not to be conscious of any bodily sensation.

Who acts: I, hands · What happens: sit, press, cross, try, not be · To what, where: tongue

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 (I, hands), 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	Why	why	ADV	PronType=Int	4 sit	advmod
2	do	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	4 sit	aux
3	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	4 sit	nsubj
4	sit	sit	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
5	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	6 night	det
6	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 sit	obl:unmarked
7	,	,	PUNCT	_	8 hour	punct
8	hour	hour	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 night	conj
9	after	after	ADP	_	10 hour	case
10	hour	hour	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 sit	obl
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	14 tongue	punct
12	with	with	ADP	_	14 tongue	case
13	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	14 tongue	nmod:poss
14	tongue	tongue	NOUN	Number=Sing	4 sit	obl
15	pressed	press	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	14 tongue	acl
16	against	against	ADP	_	18 roof	case
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 roof	det
18	roof	roof	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 pressed	obl
19	of	of	ADP	_	21 mouth	case
20	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	21 mouth	nmod:poss
21	mouth	mouth	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 roof	nmod
22	,	,	PUNCT	_	24 hands	punct
23	my	my	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	24 hands	nmod:poss
24	hands	hand	NOUN	Number=Plur	27 crossed	nsubj
25	and	and	CCONJ	_	26 feet	cc
26	feet	foot	NOUN	Number=Plur	24 hands	conj
27	crossed	cross	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	4 sit	advcl
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	29 trying	punct
29	trying	try	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	4 sit	advcl
30	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	33 conscious	advmod
31	to	to	PART	_	33 conscious	mark
32	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	33 conscious	cop
33	conscious	conscious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	29 trying	xcomp
34	of	of	ADP	_	37 sensation	case
35	any	any	DET	PronType=Ind	37 sensation	det
36	bodily	bodily	ADJ	Degree=Pos	37 sensation	amod
37	sensation	sensation	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 conscious	obl
38	.	.	PUNCT	_	4 sit	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	sit	present · do-support	I		hour; night	with my tongue	vn assuming_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent
2	press	participle		my tongue not said here		against the roof of my mouth	vn push-12-1-1 «NP V PP-Conative»: agent=Agent against roof=Theme
3	cross	participle	my hands and feet				vn contiguous_location-47.8-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	try	gerund	I not said here				vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer
5	not is not said to happen	to-infinitive	I not said here			of any bodily sensation; conscious property	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/pg75089/10/67/

🌲 Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Chinese Tea-house Story, sentence 67

The tree

Pragmatics

Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Chinese Tea-house Story, sentence 67