Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 23
The boy was quick and impetuous and said, “Mother, unless you tell me now I cannot live.
Who acts: boy, you · What happens: be, say, tell, not live · To what, where: Mother, boy · 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 (boy, you), 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 | The | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 2 boy | det |
| 2 | boy | boy | NOUN | Number=Sing | 4 quick | nsubj |
| 3 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 quick | cop |
| 4 | quick | quick | ADJ | Degree=Pos | root | root |
| 5 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 6 impetuous | cc |
| 6 | impetuous | impetuous | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 4 quick | conj |
| 7 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 8 said | cc |
| 8 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 4 quick | conj |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 Mother | punct |
| 10 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 11 Mother | punct |
| 11 | Mother | mother | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 said | obl |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 tell | punct |
| 13 | unless | unless | SCONJ | _ | 15 tell | mark |
| 14 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 15 tell | nsubj |
| 15 | tell | tell | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 8 said | ccomp |
| 16 | me | I | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 15 tell | iobj |
| 17 | now | now | ADV | PronType=Dem | 15 tell | advmod |
| 18 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 21 live | nsubj |
| 19 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 21 live | aux |
| 20 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 21 live | advmod |
| 21 | live | live | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 tell | ccomp |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 4 quick | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | is | past | the boy | quick property | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | be | the boy not said here | tree rules | ||||||
| 3 | say speech: assert | past | the boy not said here | Mother | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | ||||
| 4 | tell speech: assert a condition, not said to happen, in a quote | present | you | the boy = boy | now | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic | |||
| 5 | not live in a quote | can | the boy = boy | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
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/pg75089/18/23/