Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 51
“He said he had no family when we asked him and I could not know of your mother.
Who acts: father, we · What happens: say, have, ask, not know · To what, where: family, father · 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 (father, we), 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 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 said | punct |
| 2 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 said | nsubj |
| 3 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 5 had | nsubj |
| 5 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 said | ccomp |
| 6 | no | no | DET | PronType=Neg | 7 family | det |
| 7 | family | family | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 had | obj |
| 8 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 10 asked | advmod |
| 9 | we | we | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs | 10 asked | nsubj |
| 10 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 said | advcl |
| 11 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 asked | iobj |
| 12 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 16 know | cc |
| 13 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 16 know | nsubj |
| 14 | could | could | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 16 know | aux |
| 15 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 16 know | advmod |
| 16 | know | know | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 10 asked | conj |
| 17 | of | of | ADP | _ | 19 mother | case |
| 18 | your | your | PRON | Case=Gen Person=2 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 19 mother | nmod:poss |
| 19 | mother | mother | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 know | obl |
| 20 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert in a quote | past | father | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic | |||||
| 2 | have in a quote | past | father | no family | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent family=Patient | ||||
| 3 | ask speech: ask in a quote | past | we | father | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient | ||||
| 4 | not know in a quote | could | father | of your mother | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of mother=Stimulus |
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/pg75089/19/51/