Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 131
When the servants reached Peking they had a hard time to find the small court where she had her little room.
Who acts: servants, Peking · What happens: reach, have, find · To what, where: Peking, small court, little room
This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (servants, Peking), 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 | When | when | SCONJ | _ | 4 reached | mark |
| 2 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 3 servants | det |
| 3 | servants | servant | NOUN | Number=Plur | 4 reached | nsubj |
| 4 | reached | reach | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 7 had | advcl |
| 5 | Peking | Peking | PROPN | Number=Sing | 4 reached | obj |
| 6 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 7 had | nsubj |
| 7 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 8 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 10 time | det |
| 9 | hard | hard | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 time | amod |
| 10 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 had | obj |
| 11 | to | to | PART | _ | 12 find | mark |
| 12 | find | find | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 time | acl |
| 13 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 15 court | det |
| 14 | small | small | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 15 court | amod |
| 15 | court | court | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 find | obj |
| 16 | where | where | ADV | PronType=Rel | 18 had | advmod |
| 17 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 18 had | nsubj |
| 18 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 15 court | acl:relcl |
| 19 | her | her | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 21 room | nmod:poss |
| 20 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 21 room | amod |
| 21 | room | room | NOUN | Number=Sing | 18 had | obj |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 7 had | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | reach | past | the servants | Peking | vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent peking=Theme | ||||
| 2 | have | past | servants = servant | time | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 3 | find | to-infinitive | servants = servant not said here | the small court | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent court=Topic | ||||
| 4 | have | past | Peking | Peking's little room | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent room=Patient |
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/pg75089/19/131/