---
title: “Oh, mother, cannot you see how unhappy and miserable your poor chil… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: “Oh, mother, cannot you see how unhappy and miserable your poor children are, and how our cruel stepmother is starving us?” Who acts: you, poor children, cruel stepmother. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 3, with its dependency
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 3, sentence 49

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“Oh, mother, cannot you see how unhappy and miserable your poor children are, and how our cruel stepmother is starving us?”

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**Who acts:** you, poor children, cruel stepmother · **What happens:** see, be, starve · **To what, where:** us · **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 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, poor children, cruel stepmother), 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:pg65965:3:50
# text = “Oh, mother, cannot you see how unhappy and miserable your poor children are, and how our cruel stepmother is starving us?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	6	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	vocative	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	see	see	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
11	unhappy	unhappy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	ccomp	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	miserable	miserable	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	conj	_	_
14	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
15	poor	poor	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nsubj	_	_
17	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	25	cc	_	_
20	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	_
21	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
22	cruel	cruel	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	stepmother	stepmother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	nsubj	_	_
24	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	25	aux	_	_
25	starving	starve	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
26	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	25	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** *in a quote* | present | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | your poor children |  |  |  |  | unhappy *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **be** *in a quote* |  | your poor children *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **starve** *in a quote* | present · progressive | our cruel stepmother | us |  |  |  |  | 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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