---
title: When the woman heard this, she said, “I never heard of such a thing.” — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: When the woman heard this, she said, “I never heard of such a thing.” Who acts: woman, priest. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, How the Dog and Cat Came to Be Enemies, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, How the Dog and Cat Came to Be Enemies, sentence 10

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When the woman heard this, she said, “I never heard of such a thing.”

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**Who acts:** woman, priest · **What happens:** hear, say, not hear · **To what, where:** this · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, How the Dog and Cat Came to Be Enemies. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman, priest), 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:pg75089:14:10
# text = When the woman heard this, she said, “I never heard of such a thing.”
1	When	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	woman	woman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
5	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
7	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	17	det:predet	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | past | the woman | this |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer this=Stimulus |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | priest |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **not** **hear** *in a quote* | past | priest |  |  |  |  | of such thing | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer of thing=Stimulus |

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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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