In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 162

In order to be able to think of the sea as a mere body of water, I must be upon some height from whence its heaviest billowing appears but a lazy creeping of tiny ripples.

Who acts: I, heaviest, tiny ripples · What happens: be, think, billow, appear, creep

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, heaviest, tiny ripples), 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	In	in	ADP	ExtPos=ADP	5 able	case
2	order	order	NOUN	Number=Sing	1 In	fixed
3	to	to	PART	_	5 able	mark
4	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	5 able	cop
5	able	able	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
6	to	to	PART	_	7 think	mark
7	think	think	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	5 able	xcomp
8	of	of	ADP	_	10 sea	case
9	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	10 sea	det
10	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 think	obl
11	as	as	ADP	_	14 body	case
12	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	14 body	det
13	mere	mere	ADJ	Degree=Pos	14 body	amod
14	body	body	NOUN	Number=Sing	7 think	obl
15	of	of	ADP	_	16 water	case
16	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 body	nmod
17	,	,	PUNCT	_	23 height	punct
18	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	23 height	nsubj
19	must	must	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	23 height	aux
20	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	23 height	cop
21	upon	upon	ADP	_	23 height	case
22	some	some	DET	PronType=Ind	23 height	det
23	height	height	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 able	conj
24	from	from	ADP	_	25 whence	case
25	whence	whence	ADV	PronType=Rel	23 height	nmod
26	its	its	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	29 appears	nmod:poss
27	heaviest	heavy	ADJ	Degree=Sup	29 appears	nsubj
28	billowing	billow	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	27 heaviest	advcl
29	appears	appear	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	25 whence	advcl:relcl
30	but	but	CCONJ	_	33 creeping	cc
31	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	33 creeping	det
32	lazy	lazy	ADJ	Degree=Pos	33 creeping	amod
33	creeping	creeping	NOUN	Number=Sing	29 appears	conj
34	of	of	ADP	_	36 ripples	case
35	tiny	tiny	ADJ	Degree=Pos	36 ripples	amod
36	ripples	ripple	NOUN	Number=Plur	33 creeping	nmod
37	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 able	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	other	roles by
1	is	to-infinitive		able property	tree rules
2	think speech: other	to-infinitive		of the sea; as a mere body of water	vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent
3	is	must	I	upon some height	tree rules
4	billow	gerund	heaviest not said here		vn entity_specific_modes_being-47.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme
5	appear	present	heaviest	sea nmod:poss; a lazy creeping of tiny ripples conj	vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme
6	creep		tiny ripples		nom creeping «act intransitive»: of=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/pg8128/27/162/

🌲 In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 162

The tree

Pragmatics

In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 162