Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 15

The boy was in the city; people would know all and talk and it would come to his father-in-law’s ears, yet he could not bring himself to tell him first.

Who acts: boy, people, sight · What happens: be, know, talk, come, not bring, tell · To what, where: city, all, boy · Speech: someone speaks here

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 (boy, people, sight), 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	6 city	nsubj
3	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	6 city	cop
4	in	in	ADP	_	6 city	case
5	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 city	det
6	city	city	NOUN	Number=Sing	root	root
7	;	;	PUNCT	_	10 know	punct
8	people	people	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 know	nsubj
9	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	10 know	aux
10	know	know	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	6 city	parataxis
11	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	10 know	obj
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	13 talk	cc
13	talk	talk	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	10 know	conj
14	and	and	CCONJ	_	17 come	cc
15	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	17 come	nsubj
16	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	17 come	aux
17	come	come	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	13 talk	conj
18	to	to	ADP	_	20 father	case
19	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	20 father	nmod:poss
20	father	father	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 come	obl
21	-	-	PUNCT	_	26 ears	punct
22	in	in	ADP	_	26 ears	case
23	-	-	PUNCT	_	22 in	punct
24	law	law	NOUN	Number=Sing	26 ears	nmod:poss
25	’s	's	PART	_	24 law	case
26	ears	ear	NOUN	Number=Plur	20 father	conj
27	,	,	PUNCT	_	32 bring	punct
28	yet	yet	CCONJ	_	32 bring	cc
29	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	32 bring	nsubj
30	could	could	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	32 bring	aux
31	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	32 bring	advmod
32	bring	bring	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	10 know	conj
33	himself	himself	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	32 bring	obj
34	to	to	PART	_	35 tell	mark
35	tell	tell	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	32 bring	advcl
36	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	35 tell	iobj
37	first	first	ADV	NumForm=Word NumType=Ord	35 tell	advmod
38	.	.	PUNCT	_	6 city	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	to whom	where	other	roles by
1	is	past	the boy			the city		tree rules
2	know	would	people	all				vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer all=Stimulus
3	talk	infinitive	people not said here					vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent
4	come	would	sight				to boy's father and law's ears	vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial_location»: agent=Theme to father=Initial_Location
5	not bring	could	boy	boy				vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent himself=Theme
6	tell speech: assert	to-infinitive	boy not said here		boy		first property	vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient

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/pg75089/19/15/

🌲 Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 15

The tree

Pragmatics

Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 15