---
title: He said to himself, “What can I do here? — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: He said to himself, “What can I do here? Who acts: teacher. 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 97

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He said to himself, “What can I do here?

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**Who acts:** teacher · **What happens:** say, do · **To what, where:** teacher · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (teacher), 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:pg75089:10:97
# text = He said to himself, “What can I do here?
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	10	obj	_	_
8	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
11	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | teacher |  | teacher |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to himself=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | can | teacher |  |  | here |  | What *obj* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

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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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