---
title: Again and again the literary men wrote on the subject, but only to f… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: Again and again the literary men wrote on the subject, but only to fail of his approbation. Who acts: literary men, Emperor. 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 4

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Again and again the literary men wrote on the subject, but only to fail of his approbation.

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**Who acts:** literary men, Emperor · **What happens:** write, fail, approbate · **To what, where:** subject

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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: who acts (literary men, Emperor), 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:pg75089:10:4
# text = Again and again the literary men wrote on the subject, but only to fail of his approbation.
1	Again	again	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
2	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
3	again	again	ADV	RB	_	1	conj	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	literary	literary	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
7	wrote	write	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	subject	subject	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	only	only	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	fail	fail	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	conj	_	_
16	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
18	approbation	approbation	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write** | past | the literary men |  |  | the subject | again; again |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent on subject=Destination |
| 2 | **fail** | to-infinitive | the literary men *not said here* |  |  |  |  | of Emperor's approbation | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **approbate** |  | Emperor |  |  |  |  |  | nom approbation «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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