Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Chinese Hero, sentence 2
The youth of Western lands know very little of the great land of China, with its long history reaching far back into the dim past.
Who acts: youth, long history · What happens: know, reach · To what, where: little, dim past
This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Chinese Hero. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (youth, long history), 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 youth | det |
| 2 | youth | youth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 know | nsubj |
| 3 | of | of | ADP | _ | 5 lands | case |
| 4 | Western | western | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 lands | amod |
| 5 | lands | land | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 youth | nmod |
| 6 | know | know | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 7 | very | very | ADV | _ | 8 little | advmod |
| 8 | little | little | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 6 know | obj |
| 9 | of | of | ADP | _ | 12 land | case |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 land | det |
| 11 | great | great | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 12 land | amod |
| 12 | land | land | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 little | nmod |
| 13 | of | of | ADP | _ | 14 China | case |
| 14 | China | China | PROPN | Number=Sing | 12 land | nmod |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 history | punct |
| 16 | with | with | ADP | _ | 19 history | case |
| 17 | its | its | PRON | Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 19 history | nmod:poss |
| 18 | long | long | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 19 history | amod |
| 19 | history | history | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 know | parataxis |
| 20 | reaching | reach | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 19 history | acl |
| 21 | far | far | ADV | Degree=Pos | 22 back | advmod |
| 22 | back | back | ADV | _ | 20 reaching | advmod |
| 23 | into | into | ADP | _ | 26 past | case |
| 24 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 26 past | det |
| 25 | dim | dim | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 26 past | amod |
| 26 | past | past | NOUN | Number=Sing | 20 reaching | obl |
| 27 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 6 know | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | know | present | the youth of Western lands | little of the great land of China | youth's long history parataxis | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer little=Stimulus | |||
| 2 | reach | gerund | youth's long history not said here | the dim past | vn body_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent into past=Path |
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/pg75089/9/2/