---
title: He had seen such food but never tasted it. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: He had seen such food but never tasted it. Who acts: son. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/14/29/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Gleanings from Chinese folklore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/) / [How the Dog and Cat Came to Be Enemies](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/14/) / 29

# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, How the Dog and Cat Came to Be Enemies, sentence 29

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He had seen such food but never tasted it.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** son · **What happens:** see, not taste · **To what, where:** such food, food

<!-- .vabout -->
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), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75089:14:29
# text = He had seen such food but never tasted it.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	seen	see	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	tasted	taste	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past · perfect | son | such food |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer food=Stimulus |
| 2 | **not** **taste** | past | son *not said here* | food |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109 «NP V ADJ»: agent=Theme it=Attribute |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 28](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/14/28/)
- next →: [sentence 30](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/14/30/)
- ↑ back to [How the Dog and Cat Came to Be Enemies](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/14/)