Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 4

Taking his girdle, he was fastening it about a beam in the temple when an old priest came in and said, “Son, what would you do?

Who acts: he, old priest, Son · What happens: take, fasten, come in, say, do · To what, where: girdle, temple · 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 (he, old priest, Son), 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	Taking	take	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	root	root
2	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	3 girdle	nmod:poss
3	girdle	girdle	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 Taking	obj
4	,	,	PUNCT	_	7 fastening	punct
5	he	he	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 fastening	nsubj
6	was	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 fastening	aux
7	fastening	fasten	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	1 Taking	conj
8	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 fastening	obj
9	about	about	ADP	_	11 beam	case
10	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	11 beam	det
11	beam	beam	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 fastening	obl
12	in	in	ADP	_	14 temple	case
13	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	14 temple	det
14	temple	temple	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 fastening	obl
15	when	when	SCONJ	_	19 came	mark
16	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	18 priest	det
17	old	old	ADJ	Degree=Pos	18 priest	amod
18	priest	priest	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 came	nsubj
19	came	come	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	7 fastening	advcl
20	in	in	ADV	_	19 came	advmod
21	and	and	CCONJ	_	22 said	cc
22	said	say	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	19 came	conj
23	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 do	punct
24	“	"	PUNCT	_	30 do	punct
25	Son	Son	PROPN	Number=Sing	30 do	nsubj
26	,	,	PUNCT	_	30 do	punct
27	what	what	PRON	PronType=Int	30 do	obj
28	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	30 do	aux
29	you	you	PRON	Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs	30 do	nsubj
30	do	do	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	22 said	ccomp
31	?	?	PUNCT	_	1 Taking	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	take	gerund		his girdle			vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent girdle=Theme
2	fasten	past · progressive	he	girdle	the temple	about a beam	vn shake-22.3-2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient
3	come in	past	a old priest				vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	say speech: ask	past	a old priest not said here				vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic
5	do in a quote	would	Son			what obj; you nsubj	vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality

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/pg75089/19/4/

🌲 Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 4

The tree

Pragmatics

Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 4