In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 160

I must confess that when I am either in the sea, or upon it, I cannot fully persuade myself that it is not alive,—a conscious and a hostile power.

Who acts: I, sea · What happens: confess, be, not persuade, not be · To what, where: sea, myself

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, sea), 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	3 confess	nsubj
2	must	must	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 confess	aux
3	confess	confess	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	root	root
4	that	that	SCONJ	_	11 sea	mark
5	when	when	ADV	PronType=Int	11 sea	advmod
6	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	11 sea	nsubj
7	am	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	11 sea	cop
8	either	either	CCONJ	_	11 sea	cc:preconj
9	in	in	ADP	_	11 sea	case
10	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	11 sea	det
11	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	3 confess	ccomp
12	,	,	PUNCT	_	21 persuade	punct
13	or	or	CCONJ	_	21 persuade	cc
14	upon	upon	ADP	_	15 it	case
15	it	it	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	21 persuade	obl
16	,	,	PUNCT	_	15 it	punct
17	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	21 persuade	nsubj
18	can	can	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	21 persuade	aux
19	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	21 persuade	advmod
20	fully	fully	ADV	_	21 persuade	advmod
21	persuade	persuade	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 confess	parataxis
22	myself	myself	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes	21 persuade	obj
23	that	that	SCONJ	_	27 alive	mark
24	it	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	27 alive	nsubj
25	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	27 alive	cop
26	not	not	PART	Polarity=Neg	27 alive	advmod
27	alive	alive	ADJ	Degree=Pos	21 persuade	advcl
28	,	,	PUNCT	_	31 conscious	punct
29	—	-	PUNCT	_	31 conscious	punct
30	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	31 conscious	det
31	conscious	conscious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	27 alive	conj
32	and	and	CCONJ	_	35 power	cc
33	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	35 power	det
34	hostile	hostile	ADJ	Degree=Pos	35 power	amod
35	power	power	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 conscious	conj
36	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 confess	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	confess	must	I				vn confess-37.10 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent
2	is	present	I		the sea		tree rules
3	not persuade	can	I	myself		upon sea; fully property	vn compel-59.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent myself=Patient
4	not is	present	sea			alive property	tree rules
5	be		sea not said here			a hostile power conj	tree rules

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/pg8128/27/160/

🌲 In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 160

The tree

Pragmatics

In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 160