In Ghostly Japan, Names of Incense Used., part 2, sentence 36

It is curious to see hundreds of caterpillars feeding all together in one tray, and to hear the soft papery noise which they make while gnawing their mulberry-leaves.

Who acts: It, caterpillars, trays · What happens: be, see, feed, hear, make, gnaw · To what, where: hundreds, one tray, soft papery noise, mulberry leaves

This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Names of Incense Used., part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (It, caterpillars, trays), 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	It	it	PRON	Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	3 curious	nsubj
2	is	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 curious	cop
3	curious	curious	ADJ	Degree=Pos	root	root
4	to	to	PART	_	5 see	mark
5	see	see	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 curious	xcomp
6	hundreds	hundred	NOUN	Number=Plur	5 see	obj
7	of	of	ADP	_	8 caterpillars	case
8	caterpillars	caterpillar	NOUN	Number=Plur	6 hundreds	nmod
9	feeding	feed	VERB	VerbForm=Ger	8 caterpillars	acl
10	all	all	ADV	_	11 together	advmod
11	together	together	ADV	_	9 feeding	advmod
12	in	in	ADP	_	14 tray	case
13	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	14 tray	nummod
14	tray	tray	NOUN	Number=Sing	9 feeding	obl
15	,	,	PUNCT	_	18 hear	punct
16	and	and	CCONJ	_	18 hear	cc
17	to	to	PART	_	18 hear	mark
18	hear	hear	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	3 curious	conj
19	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	22 noise	det
20	soft	soft	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 noise	amod
21	papery	papery	ADJ	Degree=Pos	22 noise	amod
22	noise	noise	NOUN	Number=Sing	18 hear	obj
23	which	which	PRON	PronType=Rel	25 make	obj
24	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	25 make	nsubj
25	make	make	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	22 noise	acl:relcl
26	while	while	SCONJ	_	27 gnawing	mark
27	gnawing	gnaw	VERB	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	25 make	advcl
28	their	their	PRON	Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	31 leaves	nmod:poss
29	mulberry	mulberry	NOUN	Number=Sing	31 leaves	compound
30	-	-	PUNCT	_	29 mulberry	punct
31	leaves	leaf	NOUN	Number=Plur	27 gnawing	obj
32	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 curious	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	other	roles by
1	is	present	It			curious property	tree rules
2	see	to-infinitive		hundreds of caterpillars			vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer hundred=Stimulus
3	feed	gerund	caterpillars not said here		one tray	together property	vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent in tray=Location
4	hear	to-infinitive		the soft papery noise			vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer noise=Stimulus
5	make	present	trays = tray	the soft papery noise			vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset which=Product
6	gnaw	gerund	trays = tray not said here	trays's mulberry leaves			vn chew-39.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent leaf=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/pg8128/4/36/

🌲 In Ghostly Japan, Names of Incense Used., part 2, sentence 36

The tree

Pragmatics

In Ghostly Japan, Names of Incense Used., part 2, sentence 36