---
title: “But I don’t want to live forever,” objected Wang Chih. — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: “But I don’t want to live forever,” objected Wang Chih. Who acts: Wang Chih. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 23, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 23, sentence 4

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“But I don’t want to live forever,” objected Wang Chih.

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**Who acts:** Wang Chih · **What happens:** not want, live, object · **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 23. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Wang Chih), 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:pg65965:23:4
# text = “But I don’t want to live forever,” objected Wang Chih.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
4	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
6	want	want	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	ccomp	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	forever	forever	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
12	objected	object	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
13	Wang	Wang	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	Chih	Chih	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **want** *in a quote* | present · do-support | Wang Chih *= chih* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **live** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | Wang Chih *= chih* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | forever *property* | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **object** *speech: other* | past | Wang Chih |  |  |  |  |  | vn complain-37.8 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |

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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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