Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 63
“But, mother, I never saw or heard of him before,” was the reply of Kan Lang.
Who acts: I · What happens: not see, hear, be · To what, where: reply · 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 (I), 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 | _ | 8 saw | punct |
| 2 | But | but | CCONJ | _ | 8 saw | cc |
| 3 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 4 mother | punct |
| 4 | mother | mother | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 saw | dislocated |
| 5 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 4 mother | punct |
| 6 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 8 saw | nsubj |
| 7 | never | never | ADV | PronType=Neg | 8 saw | advmod |
| 8 | saw | see | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 reply | csubj |
| 9 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 10 heard | cc |
| 10 | heard | hear | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 8 saw | conj |
| 11 | of | of | ADP | _ | 12 him | case |
| 12 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 10 heard | obl |
| 13 | before | before | ADV | _ | 10 heard | advmod |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 heard | punct |
| 15 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 8 saw | punct |
| 16 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 18 reply | cop |
| 17 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 18 reply | det |
| 18 | reply | reply | NOUN | Number=Sing | root | root |
| 19 | of | of | ADP | _ | 20 Kan | case |
| 20 | Kan | Kan | PROPN | Number=Sing | 18 reply | nmod |
| 21 | Lang | Lang | PROPN | Number=Sing | 20 Kan | flat |
| 22 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 18 reply | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not see in a quote | past | I | mother dislocated | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer | ||||
| 2 | hear in a quote | past | I not said here | of Son; before property | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of he=Stimulus | ||||
| 3 | be speech: assert | past | the reply | of Kan | tree rules |
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/pg75089/19/63/