Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 94
The young man could hardly believe his ears, and looked in amazement, and at last said, “How can that be?
Who acts: young man · What happens: believe, look, say · To what, where: ears, last · 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 (young man), 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 | 3 man | det |
| 2 | young | young | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 3 man | amod |
| 3 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 believe | nsubj |
| 4 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 6 believe | aux |
| 5 | hardly | hardly | ADV | _ | 6 believe | advmod |
| 6 | believe | believe | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 7 | his | his | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 ears | nmod:poss |
| 8 | ears | ear | NOUN | Number=Plur | 6 believe | obj |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 11 looked | punct |
| 10 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 11 looked | cc |
| 11 | looked | look | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 believe | parataxis |
| 12 | in | in | ADP | _ | 13 amazement | case |
| 13 | amazement | amazement | NOUN | Number=Sing | 11 looked | obl |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 18 said | punct |
| 15 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 18 said | cc |
| 16 | at | at | ADP | _ | 17 last | case |
| 17 | last | last | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 said | obl |
| 18 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 6 believe | parataxis |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 can | punct |
| 20 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 22 can | punct |
| 21 | How | how | ADV | PronType=Int | 22 can | advmod |
| 22 | can | can | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 18 said | ccomp |
| 23 | that | that | PRON | PronType=Rel | 24 be | nsubj |
| 24 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 22 can | cop |
| 25 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 6 believe | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | believe | could | the young man | Hu's ears | hardly property | vn admire-31.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer ear=Stimulus | |||
| 2 | look | past | in amazement | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent in amazement=Theme | |||||
| 3 | say speech: assert | past | last | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
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/pg75089/18/94/