Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 5, sentence 18

The song of “Ting Lang Seeking his Father” is never sung by the “foundation beaters” of China except they are given a special gift of money or a meal of white bread.

Who acts: Ting · What happens: seek, not sing, give, sing, gift · To what, where: Father, song, money · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ting), 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	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	2 song	det
2	song	song	NOUN	Number=Sing	13 sung	nsubj:pass
3	of	of	ADP	_	5 Ting	case
4	“	"	PUNCT	_	5 Ting	punct
5	Ting	ting	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 song	nmod
6	Lang	Lang	PROPN	Number=Sing	5 Ting	appos
7	Seeking	seek	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	5 Ting	acl
8	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	9 Father	nmod:poss
9	Father	Father	PROPN	Number=Sing	7 Seeking	obj
10	”	"	PUNCT	_	9 Father	punct
11	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	13 sung	aux:pass
12	never	never	ADV	PronType=Neg	13 sung	advmod
13	sung	sing	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
14	by	by	ADP	_	18 beaters	case
15	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 beaters	det
16	“	"	PUNCT	_	18 beaters	punct
17	foundation	foundation	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 beaters	compound
18	beaters	beater	NOUN	Number=Plur	13 sung	obl
19	”	"	PUNCT	_	18 beaters	punct
20	of	of	ADP	_	21 China	case
21	China	China	PROPN	Number=Sing	18 beaters	nmod
22	except	except	ADP	_	25 given	mark
23	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	25 given	nsubj
24	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	25 given	aux:pass
25	given	give	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	13 sung	advcl
26	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	28 gift	det
27	special	special	ADJ	Degree=Pos	28 gift	amod
28	gift	gift	NOUN	Number=Sing	25 given	obj
29	of	of	ADP	_	30 money	case
30	money	money	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 gift	nmod
31	or	or	CCONJ	_	33 meal	cc
32	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	33 meal	det
33	meal	meal	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 gift	conj
34	of	of	ADP	_	36 bread	case
35	white	white	ADJ	Degree=Pos	36 bread	amod
36	bread	bread	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 meal	nmod
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	13 sung	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	seek in a quote	gerund	Ting not said here	Lang's Father		vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent father=Theme
2	not sing speech: express	present · passive		the song of Ting	by the foundation beaters of China	vn sound_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: subject=Theme
3	give	present · passive		father	a special gift of money or a meal of white bread obj	vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: subject=Recipient gift=Theme
4	sing		Ting			nom song «communication intransitive»: of=agent
5	gift			money		nom gift «possession transitive»: of=patient

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/pg75089/21/18/

🌲 Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 5, sentence 18

The tree

Pragmatics

Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 5, sentence 18