---
title: But they said: “Do not be unkind, Balna. — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: But they said: “Do not be unkind, Balna. Who acts: girls. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 3, sentence 55

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But they said: “Do not be unkind, Balna.

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**Who acts:** girls · **What happens:** say, not be · **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 (girls), 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:pg65965:3:56
# text = But they said: “Do not be unkind, Balna.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
5	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	Do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
8	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
9	unkind	unkind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	Balna	Balna	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | girls *= girl* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | infinitive · do-support |  |  |  |  |  | Balna *obl*; unkind *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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