Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 14

Little Ting Lang did not understand what he said, as his mother always told him that his father was away on government business.

Who acts: Little Ting, Ting, mother, father · What happens: not understand, say, tell, be · To what, where: Ting, government business · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Little Ting, Ting, mother, father), 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	Little	little	ADJ	Degree=Pos	2 Ting	amod
2	Ting	Ting	PROPN	Number=Sing	6 understand	nsubj
3	Lang	Lang	PROPN	Number=Sing	2 Ting	flat
4	did	do	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 understand	aux
5	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	6 understand	advmod
6	understand	understand	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
7	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	9 said	obj
8	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	9 said	nsubj
9	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 understand	ccomp
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 told	punct
11	as	as	SCONJ	_	15 told	mark
12	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	13 mother	nmod:poss
13	mother	mother	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 told	nsubj
14	always	always	ADV	PronType=Tot	15 told	advmod
15	told	tell	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 understand	parataxis
16	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	15 told	iobj
17	that	that	SCONJ	_	21 away	mark
18	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	19 father	nmod:poss
19	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 away	nsubj
20	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	21 away	cop
21	away	away	ADV	_	15 told	ccomp
22	on	on	ADP	_	24 business	case
23	government	government	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 business	compound
24	business	business	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 away	obl
25	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 understand	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	not understand	past · do-support	Little Ting				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus
2	say speech: assert	past	Ting			what obj	vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent what=Topic
3	tell speech: assert	past	Ting's mother	Ting		always property	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient
4	is	past	Ting's father		government business	away 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/pg75089/18/14/

🌲 Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 14

The tree

Pragmatics

Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 14