Gleanings from Chinese folklore, T’ang Sung’s Journey to Get the Buddhist Classics, sentence 64
While Sun Hou was pondering, a big turtle came along and said, “I knock my head to you.
Who acts: Sun Hou, big turtle · What happens: ponder, come along, say, knock · To what, where: head, you · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, T’ang Sung’s Journey to Get the Buddhist Classics. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sun Hou, big turtle), 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 | While | while | SCONJ | _ | 5 pondering | mark |
| 2 | Sun | Sun | PROPN | Number=Sing | 3 Hou | compound |
| 3 | Hou | Hou | PROPN | Number=Sing | 5 pondering | nsubj |
| 4 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 pondering | aux |
| 5 | pondering | ponder | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 10 came | advcl |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 5 pondering | punct |
| 7 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 9 turtle | det |
| 8 | big | big | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 9 turtle | amod |
| 9 | turtle | turtle | NOUN | Number=Sing | 10 came | nsubj |
| 10 | came | come | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 11 | along | along | ADV | _ | 10 came | advmod |
| 12 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 13 said | cc |
| 13 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 10 came | conj |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 17 knock | punct |
| 15 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 17 knock | punct |
| 16 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 17 knock | nsubj |
| 17 | knock | knock | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 13 said | ccomp |
| 18 | my | my | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 19 head | nmod:poss |
| 19 | head | head | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 knock | obj |
| 20 | to | to | ADP | _ | 21 you | case |
| 21 | you | you | PRON | Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs | 17 knock | obl |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 10 came | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ponder | past · progressive | Sun Hou | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 2 | come along | past | a big turtle | along property | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | ||||
| 3 | say speech: assert | past | a big turtle not said here | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 4 | knock in a quote | present | a big turtle = turtle | my head | you | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent head=Theme to you=Destination |
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/pg75089/16/64/