---
title: Thereupon Balatama encountered a great snake in the road, and it inq… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: Thereupon Balatama encountered a great snake in the road, and it inquired his errand. Who acts: Balatama, snake. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 24, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 24, sentence 47

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Thereupon Balatama encountered a great snake in the road, and it inquired his errand.

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**Who acts:** Balatama, snake · **What happens:** encounter, inquire · **To what, where:** great snake, road, errand

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 24. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Balatama, snake), 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:pg65965:24:49
# text = Thereupon Balatama encountered a great snake in the road, and it inquired his errand.
1	Thereupon	thereupon	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
2	Balatama	Balatama	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	encountered	encounter	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	snake	snake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
14	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	15	nmod:poss	_	_
15	errand	errand	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **encounter** | past | Balatama | a great snake |  | the road |  | thereupon *property* | vn encounter-30.5 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer snake=Stimulus |
| 2 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past | snake | Balatama's errand |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent errand=Recipient |

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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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