Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 73
When I asked you if I had an ‘older sister’ you said no!
Who acts: I, you · What happens: ask, have, say · To what, where: you, older sister · 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, you), 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 | ADV | PronType=Int | 3 asked | advmod |
| 2 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 3 asked | nsubj |
| 3 | asked | ask | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 14 said | advcl |
| 4 | you | you | PRON | Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs | 3 asked | iobj |
| 5 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 7 had | mark |
| 6 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 7 had | nsubj |
| 7 | had | have | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 asked | advcl |
| 8 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 11 sister | det |
| 9 | ‘ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 11 sister | punct |
| 10 | older | old | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 11 sister | amod |
| 11 | sister | sister | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 had | obj |
| 12 | ’ | ' | PUNCT | _ | 3 asked | punct |
| 13 | you | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 14 said | nsubj |
| 14 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 15 | no | no | INTJ | Polarity=Neg | 14 said | obj |
| 16 | ! | ! | PUNCT | _ | 14 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ask speech: ask | past | I | you | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient | ||||
| 2 | have a condition, not said to happen | past | I | a older sister | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sister=Patient | ||||
| 3 | say speech: assert | past | you | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent no=Topic |
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/pg75089/19/73/