---
title: But to his mother he said, “Nothing you make is bad; it all tastes g… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: But to his mother he said, “Nothing you make is bad; it all tastes good.” Who acts: son, mother, Nothing, cornmeal. 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 27

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But to his mother he said, “Nothing you make is bad; it all tastes good.”

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**Who acts:** son, mother, Nothing, cornmeal · **What happens:** say, make, be, taste · **To what, where:** mother · **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 (son, mother, Nothing, cornmeal), 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:pg75089:14:27
# text = But to his mother he said, “Nothing you make is bad; it all tastes good.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	to	to	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	13	nsubj	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	make	make	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	bad	bad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
15	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	17	nsubj	_	_
16	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	15	det	_	_
17	tastes	taste	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	ccomp	_	_
18	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	17	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | son |  | son's mother |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to mother=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **make** *in a quote* | present | son's mother *= mother* |  |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Nothing |  |  |  |  | bad *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **taste** *in a quote* | present | cornmeal |  |  |  |  | good *property* | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V ADJ»: agent=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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