---
title: But they could not afford pork very often; he generally had to be co… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: But they could not afford pork very often; he generally had to be content with rice. Who acts: wife, Wang. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 22, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 22, sentence 72

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But they could not afford pork very often; he generally had to be content with rice.

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**Who acts:** wife, Wang · **What happens:** not afford, have, be · **To what, where:** pork

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 22. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife, Wang), 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:pg65965:22:74
# text = But they could not afford pork very often; he generally had to be content with rice.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	afford	afford	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	pork	pork	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
7	very	very	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
8	often	often	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
11	generally	generally	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	advcl	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
14	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	cop	_	_
15	content	content	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	xcomp	_	_
16	with	with	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	rice	rice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **afford** | could | wife | pork |  |  |  | often *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | Wang |  |  |  |  | generally *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** | to-infinitive | Wang *not said here* |  |  |  |  | with rice; content *property* | tree rules |

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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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