In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 148

Sometimes, just before breaking, a towering swell would crack all its green length with a tinkle as of shivering glass; then would fall and flatten with a peal that shook the wall beneath me….

Who acts: breaking, peal · What happens: break, tower, crack, shiver, fall, flatten · To what, where: towering swell, green length, glass, wall

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 (breaking, peal), 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	Sometimes	sometimes	ADV	PronType=Ind	5 breaking	advmod
2	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 breaking	punct
3	just	just	ADV	_	5 breaking	advmod
4	before	before	SCONJ	_	5 breaking	mark
5	breaking	break	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	11 crack	csubj
6	,	,	PUNCT	_	5 breaking	punct
7	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	9 swell	det
8	towering	tower	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	9 swell	amod
9	swell	swell	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 breaking	obj
10	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	11 crack	aux
11	crack	crack	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
12	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	15 length	det:predet
13	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	15 length	nmod:poss
14	green	green	ADJ	Degree=Pos	15 length	amod
15	length	length	NOUN	Number=Sing	11 crack	obj
16	with	with	ADP	_	18 tinkle	case
17	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	18 tinkle	det
18	tinkle	tinkle	NOUN	Number=Sing	15 length	nmod
19	as	as	SCONJ	_	21 shivering	mark
20	of	of	ADP	_	19 as	fixed
21	shivering	shiver	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	11 crack	advcl
22	glass	glass	NOUN	Number=Sing	21 shivering	obj
23	;	;	PUNCT	_	26 fall	punct
24	then	then	ADV	PronType=Dem	26 fall	advmod
25	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	26 fall	aux
26	fall	fall	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	11 crack	conj
27	and	and	CCONJ	_	28 flatten	cc
28	flatten	flatten	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	26 fall	conj
29	with	with	ADP	_	31 peal	case
30	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	31 peal	det
31	peal	peal	NOUN	Number=Sing	28 flatten	obl
32	that	that	PRON	PronType=Rel	33 shook	nsubj
33	shook	shake	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 peal	acl:relcl
34	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	35 wall	det
35	wall	wall	NOUN	Number=Sing	33 shook	obj
36	beneath	beneath	ADP	_	37 me	case
37	me	I	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	33 shook	obl
38	….	..	PUNCT	_	11 crack	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	when	other	roles by
1	break	gerund		a towering swell		sometimes property	vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer swell=Patient
2	tower	gerund					vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
3	crack	would	breaking	wave's green length		with a tinkle	vn break-45.1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent length=Patient with tinkle=Instrument
4	shiver	gerund	breaking not said here	glass			tree rules
5	fall	would	breaking not said here		then		vn occur-48.3 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	flatten	infinitive	breaking not said here			with a peal	vn carve-21.2-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent with peal=Instrument
7	shake	past	a peal	the wall		beneath me	vn funnel-9.3-1-1 «NP V NP PP.trajectory»: agent=Agent wall=Theme beneath i=Trajectory

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/pg8128/27/148/

🌲 In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 148

The tree

Pragmatics

In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 148