Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 76

For food he was given permission to take a handful of grain from each bag of tribute rice that he saw on carts passing through the city.

Who acts: Yang, carts · What happens: give, take, see, pass · To what, where: Yang, handful, bag, carts, city

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 (Yang, carts), 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	For	for	ADP	_	2 food	case
2	food	food	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 given	obl
3	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	5 given	nsubj:pass
4	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	5 given	aux:pass
5	given	give	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
6	permission	permission	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 given	obj
7	to	to	PART	_	8 take	mark
8	take	take	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 given	advcl
9	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 handful	det
10	handful	handful	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 take	obj
11	of	of	ADP	_	12 grain	case
12	grain	grain	NOUN	Number=Sing	10 handful	nmod
13	from	from	ADP	_	15 bag	case
14	each	each	DET	PronType=Tot	15 bag	det
15	bag	bag	NOUN	Number=Sing	8 take	obl
16	of	of	ADP	_	18 rice	case
17	tribute	tribute	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 rice	compound
18	rice	rice	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 bag	nmod
19	that	that	SCONJ	_	21 saw	mark
20	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 saw	nsubj
21	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	8 take	advcl
22	on	on	ADP	_	23 carts	case
23	carts	cart	NOUN	Number=Plur	21 saw	obl
24	passing	pass	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	23 carts	acl
25	through	through	ADP	_	27 city	case
26	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	27 city	det
27	city	city	NOUN	Number=Sing	24 passing	obl
28	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 given	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	give	past · passive		Yang		for food; permission obj	vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP NP PP.asset»: subject=Recipient permission=Theme for food=Asset
2	take	to-infinitive		a handful of grain	each bag of tribute rice		vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP PP.initial_location»: agent=Agent handful=Theme from bag=Initial_Location
3	see	past	Yang		carts		vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer
4	pass	gerund	carts not said here		the city		vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme through city=Location

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/pg75089/18/76/

🌲 Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 76

The tree

Pragmatics

Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 76