Gleanings from Chinese folklore, Miss Nellie N. Russell’s Unique Work, sentence 14
Dressed most carefully in Chinese garments, for many years she spent months at a time away from Peking, living at some branch station, making trips to nearby villages, holding classes for women or visiting them in their homes.
Who acts: simplicity · What happens: dress, spend, live, make, hold, visit · To what, where: Chinese garments, branch station, trips, classes, homes
This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Miss Nellie N. Russell’s Unique Work. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (simplicity), 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 | Dressed | dress | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | root | root |
| 2 | most | most | ADV | Degree=Sup | 3 carefully | advmod |
| 3 | carefully | carefully | ADV | _ | 1 Dressed | advmod |
| 4 | in | in | ADP | _ | 6 garments | case |
| 5 | Chinese | Chinese | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 garments | amod |
| 6 | garments | garment | NOUN | Number=Plur | 1 Dressed | obl |
| 7 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 spent | punct |
| 8 | for | for | ADP | _ | 10 years | case |
| 9 | many | many | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 10 years | amod |
| 10 | years | year | NOUN | Number=Plur | 12 spent | obl |
| 11 | she | she | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Fem Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 12 spent | nsubj |
| 12 | spent | spend | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 1 Dressed | conj |
| 13 | months | month | NOUN | Number=Plur | 12 spent | obj |
| 14 | at | at | ADP | _ | 16 time | case |
| 15 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 16 time | det |
| 16 | time | time | NOUN | Number=Sing | 12 spent | obl |
| 17 | away | away | ADV | _ | 12 spent | advmod |
| 18 | from | from | ADP | _ | 19 Peking | case |
| 19 | Peking | Peking | PROPN | Number=Sing | 17 away | obl |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 21 living | punct |
| 21 | living | live | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 12 spent | advcl |
| 22 | at | at | ADP | _ | 25 station | case |
| 23 | some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 25 station | det |
| 24 | branch | branch | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 station | compound |
| 25 | station | station | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 living | obl |
| 26 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 27 making | punct |
| 27 | making | make | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 21 living | conj |
| 28 | trips | trip | NOUN | Number=Plur | 27 making | obj |
| 29 | to | to | ADP | _ | 31 villages | case |
| 30 | nearby | nearby | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 31 villages | amod |
| 31 | villages | village | NOUN | Number=Plur | 27 making | obl |
| 32 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 33 holding | punct |
| 33 | holding | hold | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 21 living | conj |
| 34 | classes | class | NOUN | Number=Plur | 33 holding | obj |
| 35 | for | for | ADP | _ | 36 women | case |
| 36 | women | woman | NOUN | Number=Plur | 33 holding | obl |
| 37 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 38 visiting | cc |
| 38 | visiting | visit | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 33 holding | conj |
| 39 | them | they | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 38 visiting | obj |
| 40 | in | in | ADP | _ | 42 homes | case |
| 41 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 42 homes | nmod:poss |
| 42 | homes | home | NOUN | Number=Plur | 38 visiting | obl |
| 43 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 1 Dressed | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | dress | participle | Chinese garments | carefully property | vn dress-41.1.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | spend | past | simplicity | month; time; year | away property | vn consume-66-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent | |||
| 3 | live | gerund | simplicity not said here | some branch station | vn lodge-46 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme at station=Location | ||||
| 4 | make | gerund | simplicity not said here | trips | to nearby villages | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset trip=Product | |||
| 5 | hold | gerund | simplicity not said here | classes | for women | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent class=Theme | |||
| 6 | visit | gerund | simplicity not said here | classes = class | classes's homes | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent they=Co-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/pg75089/4/14/