--- title: The ordinary span of a man’s life is very short.” He wondered whethe… — Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki · tree and pragmatics description: The ordinary span of a man’s life is very short.” He wondered whether it were possible, by living simply and frugally henceforth, to prolong his life as long as he wished. Who acts: ordinary span, man. A sentence of «Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki», a book of tales from Project Gutenber --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg4018/863/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg4018/) / 863 # Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki, sentence 863 The ordinary span of a man’s life is very short.” He wondered whether it were possible, by living simply and frugally henceforth, to prolong his life as long as he wished. **Who acts:** ordinary span, man · **What happens:** be, wonder, live, prolong, wish · **To what, where:** life · **Speech:** someone speaks here This is a sentence of «Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki», a book of tales from Project Gutenberg. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ordinary span, man), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree. ## The tree {#tree} ```conllu # sent_id = gutenberg:pg4018:863 # text = The ordinary span of a man’s life is very short.” He wondered whether it were possible, by living simply and frugally henceforth, to prolong his life as long as he wished. # source = Project Gutenberg (public domain in the USA), book id in sent_id # annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18 1 The the DET DT Definite=Def|PronType=Art 3 det _ _ 2 ordinary ordinary ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 3 amod _ _ 3 span span NOUN NN Number=Sing 11 nsubj _ _ 4 of of ADP IN _ 8 case _ _ 5 a a DET DT Definite=Ind|PronType=Art 6 det _ _ 6 man man NOUN NN Number=Sing 8 nmod:poss _ _ 7 ’s 's PART POS _ 6 case _ _ 8 life life NOUN NN Number=Sing 3 nmod _ _ 9 is be AUX VBZ Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin 11 cop _ _ 10 very very ADV RB _ 11 advmod _ _ 11 short short ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 0 root _ _ 12 . . PUNCT . _ 11 punct _ _ 13 ” " PUNCT '' _ 11 punct _ _ 14 He he PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 15 nsubj _ _ 15 wondered wonder VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 11 parataxis _ _ 16 whether whether SCONJ IN _ 19 mark _ _ 17 it it PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 19 expl _ _ 18 were be AUX VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 19 cop _ _ 19 possible possible ADJ JJ Degree=Pos 15 ccomp _ _ 20 , , PUNCT , _ 22 punct _ _ 21 by by SCONJ IN _ 22 mark _ _ 22 living live VERB VBG Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part 19 advcl _ _ 23 simply simply ADV RB _ 22 advmod _ _ 24 and and CCONJ CC _ 25 cc _ _ 25 frugally frugally ADV RB _ 23 conj _ _ 26 henceforth henceforth ADV RB _ 22 advmod _ _ 27 , , PUNCT , _ 29 punct _ _ 28 to to PART TO _ 29 mark _ _ 29 prolong prolong VERB VB VerbForm=Inf 19 csubj _ _ 30 his his PRON PRP$ Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs 31 nmod:poss _ _ 31 life life NOUN NN Number=Sing 29 obj _ _ 32 as as ADV RB _ 33 advmod _ _ 33 long long ADV RB Degree=Pos 29 advmod _ _ 34 as as SCONJ IN _ 36 mark _ _ 35 he he PRON PRP Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs 36 nsubj _ _ 36 wished wish VERB VBD Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin 33 advcl _ _ 37 . . PUNCT . _ 15 punct _ _ ``` ## Pragmatics {#pragmatics} | # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1 | **is** | present | the ordinary span of a man's life | | | | | short *property* | tree rules | | 2 | **wonder** *speech: ask* *in a quote* | past | man | | | | | | vn care-88.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer | | 3 | **is** *in a quote* | past | | | | | | possible *property* | tree rules | | 4 | **live** *in a quote* | gerund | | | | | | henceforth, simply *property* | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | | 5 | **prolong** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | | man's life | | | | long *property* | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent life=Theme | | 6 | **wish** *in a quote* | past | man | | | | | | vn wish-62 «NP V for NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot | 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:** «Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora Ozaki», Project Gutenberg book 4018 (public domain in the USA). **Annotation:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`mova-tales-silver-en.conllu`), Apache-2.0 OR MIT: parsed by Mova, patched by a large language model as teacher under UD validation gates. Sentence `gutenberg:pg4018:863`. **The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the tale's sample read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence. See the [release 0.3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.3/). - ← previous: [Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora…, 858](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg4018/858/) - next →: [Japanese Fairy Tales, by Yei Theodora…, 893](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg4018/893/) - ↑ back to [the tale](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg4018/)