Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 4, sentence 36
Give me a few changes of cotton garments; they will fit my station better and I will not appear to be other than I am.”
Who acts: you, garments, I, cotton garments · What happens: give, fit, not appear, be, change · To what, where: few changes, me, station
This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, garments, I, cotton garments), 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 | Give | give | VERB | Mood=Imp VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 2 | me | I | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 1 Give | iobj |
| 3 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 changes | det |
| 4 | few | few | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 changes | amod |
| 5 | changes | change | NOUN | Number=Plur | 1 Give | obj |
| 6 | of | of | ADP | _ | 8 garments | case |
| 7 | cotton | cotton | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 garments | compound |
| 8 | garments | garment | NOUN | Number=Plur | 5 changes | nmod |
| 9 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 12 fit | punct |
| 10 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 fit | nsubj |
| 11 | will | will | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 12 fit | aux |
| 12 | fit | fit | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 1 Give | parataxis |
| 13 | my | my | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 14 station | nmod:poss |
| 14 | station | station | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 fit | obj |
| 15 | better | good | ADJ | Degree=Cmp | 12 fit | xcomp |
| 16 | and | and | CCONJ | _ | 20 appear | cc |
| 17 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 20 appear | nsubj |
| 18 | will | will | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 20 appear | aux |
| 19 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 20 appear | advmod |
| 20 | appear | appear | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 12 fit | conj |
| 21 | to | to | PART | _ | 23 other | mark |
| 22 | be | be | AUX | VerbForm=Inf | 23 other | cop |
| 23 | other | other | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 20 appear | obj |
| 24 | than | than | ADP | _ | 25 I | case |
| 25 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 23 other | obl |
| 26 | am | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 23 other | cop |
| 27 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 1 Give | punct |
| 28 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 1 Give | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | give | imperative | you not said here | a few changes of cotton garments | me | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient change=Theme | |||
| 2 | fit | future | garments = garment | my station | good property | vn adjust-26.9 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent station=Patient | |||
| 3 | not appear | future | I | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 4 | is | to-infinitive | than I; other property | tree rules | |||||
| 5 | change | cotton garments | nom change «event intransitive»: of=agent |
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/pg75089/20/36/