---
title: One evening when their supply of meat was low, the boy said: — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: One evening when their supply of meat was low, the boy said: Who acts: supply, boy. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 15, sentence 28

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One evening when their supply of meat was low, the boy said:

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**Who acts:** supply, boy · **What happens:** be, say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (supply, boy), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:15:29
# text = One evening when their supply of meat was low, the boy said:
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	evening	evening	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	9	mark	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	supply	supply	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	meat	meat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
9	low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | houses's supply of meat |  |  |  |  | low *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the boy |  |  |  | evening |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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**Text:** «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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