In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 91

Over the water I saw something like a long swarm of fire-flies,—the lanterns drifting out to sea in procession; but they were already too far to be distinguished except as points of colored light.

Who acts: I, lanterns, lantern · What happens: see, drift out, be, distinguish, point · To what, where: something, water, procession, colored light

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, lanterns, lantern), 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	Over	over	ADP	_	3 water	case
2	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	3 water	det
3	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	5 saw	obl
4	I	I	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs	5 saw	nsubj
5	saw	see	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	root	root
6	something	something	PRON	Number=Sing PronType=Ind	5 saw	obj
7	like	like	ADP	_	10 swarm	case
8	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	10 swarm	det
9	long	long	ADJ	Degree=Pos	10 swarm	amod
10	swarm	swarm	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 something	nmod
11	of	of	ADP	_	14 flies	case
12	fire	fire	NOUN	Number=Sing	14 flies	compound
13	-	-	PUNCT	_	12 fire	punct
14	flies	fly	NOUN	Number=Plur	10 swarm	nmod
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 lanterns	punct
16	—	-	PUNCT	_	18 lanterns	punct
17	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	18 lanterns	det
18	lanterns	lantern	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 something	conj
19	drifting	drift	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	18 lanterns	acl
20	out	out	ADP	_	19 drifting	compound:prt
21	to	to	ADP	_	22 sea	case
22	sea	sea	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 drifting	obl
23	in	in	ADP	_	24 procession	case
24	procession	procession	NOUN	Number=Sing	19 drifting	obl
25	;	;	PUNCT	_	34 distinguished	punct
26	but	but	CCONJ	_	31 far	cc
27	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	31 far	nsubj
28	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	31 far	cop
29	already	already	ADV	_	31 far	advmod
30	too	too	ADV	_	31 far	advmod
31	far	far	ADV	Degree=Pos	34 distinguished	advmod
32	to	to	PART	_	34 distinguished	mark
33	be	be	AUX	VerbForm=Inf	34 distinguished	aux:pass
34	distinguished	distinguish	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	5 saw	conj
35	except	except	ADP	_	37 points	case
36	as	as	ADP	_	37 points	case
37	points	point	NOUN	Number=Plur	34 distinguished	obl
38	of	of	ADP	_	40 light	case
39	colored	colored	ADJ	Degree=Pos	40 light	amod
40	light	light	NOUN	Number=Sing	37 points	nmod
41	.	.	PUNCT	_	5 saw	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	see	past	I	something the lanterns	the water	like a long swarm of fire flies	vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer something=Stimulus
2	drift out	gerund	the lanterns not said here		procession	to sea	vn roll-51.3.1 «NP.theme V PP.source PP.trajectory PP.destination»: agent=Theme to sea=Source in procession=Trajectory
3	is	past	lantern			far property	tree rules
4	distinguish	to-infinitive · passive	I not said here			except points of colored light	vn distinguish-23.5-1 «NP V PP»
5	point			colored light			nom point «cognition transitive»: of=patient

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/pg8128/27/91/

🌲 In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 91

The tree

Pragmatics

In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu[1], sentence 91