---
title: The time to cut and harvest the rice approached, when clouds of bird… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: The time to cut and harvest the rice approached, when clouds of birds came and devoured it. Who acts: time, clouds. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 6, sentence 93

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The time to cut and harvest the rice approached, when clouds of birds came and devoured it.

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**Who acts:** time, clouds · **What happens:** cut, harvest, approach, come, devour, cloud · **To what, where:** rice, jealousy, birds

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (time, clouds), 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:pg65965:6:96
# text = The time to cut and harvest the rice approached, when clouds of birds came and devoured it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	acl	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	harvest	harvest	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	rice	rice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	approached	approach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	15	mark	_	_
12	clouds	cloud	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	15	nsubj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
15	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
16	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	devoured	devour	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut** | to-infinitive | the time *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **harvest** | infinitive | the time *not said here* | the rice |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **approach** | past | the time |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **come** | past | clouds of birds |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **devour** | past | clouds of birds *not said here* | jealousy |  |  |  |  | vn devour-39.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 6 | **cloud** |  |  | birds |  |  |  |  | nom cloud «phenomenon transitive»: of=patient |

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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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