---
title: At his side was a cow’s tail, used to brush away flies. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: At his side was a cow’s tail, used to brush away flies. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Chinese Tea-house Story, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Chinese Tea-house Story, sentence 103

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At his side was a cow’s tail, used to brush away flies.

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**What happens:** be, use, brush away · **To what, where:** tail, side, flies

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Chinese Tea-house Story. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg75089:10:103
# text = At his side was a cow’s tail, used to brush away flies.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	cow	cow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	brush	brush	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	away	away	ADP	RP	_	12	compound:prt	_	_
14	flies	fly	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | cow's tail |  | teacher's side |  | cow *nmod:poss* | tree rules |
| 2 | **use** | participle |  | cow's tail *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **brush away** | to-infinitive |  |  | flies |  |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent fly=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:** «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Project Gutenberg book 75089 (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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