Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 1, sentence 96
What can I do to prove to you that I mean what I say?
Who acts: I · What happens: do, prove, mean, say · To what, where: you · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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 | What | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 4 do | obj |
| 2 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 4 do | aux |
| 3 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 4 do | nsubj |
| 4 | do | do | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 5 | to | to | PART | _ | 6 prove | mark |
| 6 | prove | prove | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 4 do | advcl |
| 7 | to | to | ADP | _ | 8 you | case |
| 8 | you | you | PRON | Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs | 6 prove | obl |
| 9 | that | that | SCONJ | _ | 11 mean | mark |
| 10 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 11 mean | nsubj |
| 11 | mean | mean | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 6 prove | advcl |
| 12 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 14 say | obj |
| 13 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 14 say | nsubj |
| 14 | say | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 11 mean | ccomp |
| 15 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 4 do | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | do | can | I | What obj | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality | ||||
| 2 | prove | to-infinitive | I not said here | you | vn indicate-78-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient that S»: agent=Pivot to you=Experiencer | ||||
| 3 | mean | present | I | vn intend-61.2-1 «NP V S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 4 | say speech: assert | present | I | what obj | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic |
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/pg75089/17/96/