---
title: They gave up their lives in order, as they thought, to save others. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: They gave up their lives in order, as they thought, to save others. Who acts: fathers. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Chinese Heroism, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, Chinese Heroism, sentence 33

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They gave up their lives in order, as they thought, to save others.

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**Who acts:** fathers · **What happens:** give up, think, save · **To what, where:** lives, order, others · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Chinese Heroism. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fathers), 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:pg75089:12:33
# text = They gave up their lives in order, as they thought, to save others.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	up	up	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	order	order	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
15	others	other	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give up** | past | fathers *= father* | fathers's lives |  | order |  |  | vn resign-10.11-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent life=Source |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | fathers *= father* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **save** | to-infinitive |  | others |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent other=Theme |

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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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