---
title: Taking five servants with him, he hired a ship, and started for China. — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: Taking five servants with him, he hired a ship, and started for China. Who acts: word. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 5, sentence 50

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Taking five servants with him, he hired a ship, and started for China.

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**Who acts:** word · **What happens:** take, hire, start · **To what, where:** five servants, ship

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (word), 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:pg65965:5:50
# text = Taking five servants with him, he hired a ship, and started for China.
1	Taking	take	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
2	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	nummod	_	_
3	servants	servant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	1	obj	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	hired	hire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	ship	ship	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
14	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	China	China	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take** | gerund | word *not said here* | five servants |  |  |  | with word | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent servant=Theme |
| 2 | **hire** | past | word | a ship |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent ship=Theme |
| 3 | **start** | past | word *not said here* |  |  |  |  | for China | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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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