In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 109

I watched those frail glowing shapes drifting through the night, and ever as they drifted scattering, under impulse of wind and wave, more and more widely apart.

Who acts: I, shapes · What happens: watch, glow, drift, scatter, wave · To what, where: frail, shapes, impulse

This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Story of a Tengu[1]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, shapes), 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	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	2 watched	nsubj
2	watched	watch	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
3	those	that	DET	Number=Plur PronType=Dem	4 frail	det
4	frail	frail	NOUN	Number=Sing	2 watched	obj
5	glowing	glow	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	2 watched	advcl
6	shapes	shape	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 glowing	obj
7	drifting	drift	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	6 shapes	acl
8	through	through	ADP	_	10 night	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 night	det
10	night	night	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 drifting	obl
11	,	,	PUNCT	_	16 drifted	punct
12	and	and	CCONJ	_	16 drifted	cc
13	ever	ever	ADV	PronType=Ind	16 drifted	advmod
14	as	as	SCONJ	_	16 drifted	mark
15	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 drifted	nsubj
16	drifted	drift	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	2 watched	conj
17	scattering	scatter	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	16 drifted	advcl
18	,	,	PUNCT	_	20 impulse	punct
19	under	under	ADP	_	20 impulse	case
20	impulse	impulse	NOUN	Number=Sing	17 scattering	obl
21	of	of	ADP	_	22 wind	case
22	wind	wind	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 impulse	nmod
23	and	and	CCONJ	_	24 wave	cc
24	wave	wave	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	16 drifted	conj
25	,	,	PUNCT	_	26 more	punct
26	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	24 wave	advmod
27	and	and	CCONJ	_	30 apart	cc
28	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	29 widely	advmod
29	widely	widely	ADV	_	30 apart	advmod
30	apart	apart	ADV	_	26 more	conj
31	.	.	PUNCT	_	2 watched	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	roles by
1	watch	past	I	that frail			vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent frail=Theme
2	glow	gerund	I not said here	shapes			vn light_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent shape=Theme
3	drift	gerund	shapes not said here			night	vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
4	drift	past	shapes = shape			ever	vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	scatter	gerund	shapes = shape not said here		impulse of wind		vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme under impulse=Destination
6	wave	present	shapes = shape not said here				vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=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: «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Project Gutenberg book 8128 (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/pg8128/27/109/

🌲 In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 109

The tree

Pragmatics

In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 109