---
title: For who ever heard of tears that, like rivers, could flood a quarter… — The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth · tree and pragmatics
description: For who ever heard of tears that, like rivers, could flood a quarter of the world? Who acts: rivers. A sentence of «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, A Sleep and a Dream., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg68641/6/81/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg68641/) / [A Sleep and a Dream., part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg68641/6/) / 81

# The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth, A Sleep and a Dream., part 4, sentence 81

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
For who ever heard of tears that, like rivers, could flood a quarter of the world?

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** rivers · **What happens:** hear, flood · **To what, where:** tears

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, A Sleep and a Dream., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (rivers), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg68641:6:82
# text = For who ever heard of tears that, like rivers, could flood a quarter of the world?
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
3	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	4	advmod	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	tears	tear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	_
7	that	that	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	like	like	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	rivers	river	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	flood	flood	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl:relcl	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	quarter	quarter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past |  |  |  |  | ever | of tears; who *nsubj* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of tear=Stimulus |
| 2 | **flood** | could | rivers | tears |  |  |  | a quarter of the world *obj* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The descent of the sun: A cycle of birth» by Unknown, Project Gutenberg book 68641 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 80](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg68641/6/80/)
- next →: [sentence 82](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg68641/6/82/)
- ↑ back to [A Sleep and a Dream., part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg68641/6/)