---
title: An old story says "nián" was a monster scared away by the colour red… — Spring Festival — Chinese New Year · tree and pragmatics
description: An old story says "nián" was a monster scared away by the colour red and loud bangs — so there are red couplets by the door, red lanterns and firecrackers. Who acts: old story, nián, red couplets. A sentence of the lesson «Spring Festival — Chinese New Year» of the chinese street course of Mova's pr
---

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# Spring Festival — Chinese New Year, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
An old story says "nián" was a monster scared away by the colour red and loud bangs — so there are red couplets by the door, red lanterns and firecrackers.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** old story, nián, red couplets · **What happens:** say, be, scare away · **To what, where:** monster · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of the lesson «Spring Festival — Chinese New Year» of the chinese street course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old story, nián, red couplets), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:chinese-street:025-spring-festival.lesson:2
# text = An old story says "nián" was a monster scared away by the colour red and loud bangs — so there are red couplets by the door, red lanterns and firecrackers.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = chinese-street
# lesson = 025-spring-festival.lesson
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change
1	An	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	_
6	nián	nián	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
7	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	monster	monster	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	ccomp	_	_
11	scared	scare	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	acl	_	_
12	away	away	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
13	by	by	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	colour	colour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	_
16	red	red	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	loud	loud	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	bangs	bang	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	conj	_	_
20	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	23	punct	_	_
21	so	so	ADV	RB	_	23	advmod	_	_
22	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	23	expl	_	_
23	are	be	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
24	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	25	amod	_	_
25	couplets	couplet	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj	_	_
26	by	by	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	door	door	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nmod	_	_
29	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	31	punct	_	_
30	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	amod	_	_
31	lanterns	lantern	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	25	conj	_	_
32	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	33	cc	_	_
33	firecrackers	firecracker	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	conj	_	_
34	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: assert
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: changed voice=narrator

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | a old story |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past | nián | a monster |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **scare away** | participle |  | a monster *not said here* |  |  |  | by the colour red and loud bangs; away *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **does** | present | red couplets by the door and red lanterns and firecrackers |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

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**Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:chinese-street:025-spring-festival.lesson:2`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): no change. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

<!-- /div -->

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- ↑ back to [the lesson](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/chinese-street/25-spring-festival/)