---
title: "But only night gives us being comprehensible to men; the day confin… — Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains · tree and pragmatics
description: "But only night gives us being comprehensible to men; the day confines us stiff and without form in our narrow house." Who acts: night, day. A sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, A Historical Tale., part 7, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clau
---

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# Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains, A Historical Tale., part 7, sentence 16

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"But only night gives us being comprehensible to men; the day confines us stiff and without form in our narrow house."

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**Who acts:** night, day · **What happens:** give, be, confine · **To what, where:** us, narrow house · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, A Historical Tale., part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (night, day), 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:pg74323:24:16
# text = "But only night gives us being comprehensible to men; the day confines us stiff and without form in our narrow house."
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
3	only	only	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	gives	give	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	csubj	_	_
6	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	iobj	_	_
7	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	cop	_	_
8	comprehensible	comprehensible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	confines	confine	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
15	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	stiff	stiff	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	xcomp	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	without	without	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	form	form	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
20	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
21	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
22	narrow	narrow	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	house	house	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** *in a quote* | present | night |  | us |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent we=Theme |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  | to men; comprehensible *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **confine** *in a quote* | present | the day | us |  | our narrow house |  | stiff *property* | vn confine-92-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent we=Theme in house=Destination |

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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:** «Legends and tales of the Harz Mountains» by Toofie Lauder, Project Gutenberg book 74323 (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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