---
title: The old lady wept most bitterly and refused to be comforted. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: The old lady wept most bitterly and refused to be comforted. Who acts: old lady. 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 45

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The old lady wept most bitterly and refused to be comforted.

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**Who acts:** old lady · **What happens:** weep, refuse, not comfort

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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 (old lady), 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:pg75089:14:45
# text = The old lady wept most bitterly and refused to be comforted.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	lady	lady	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	wept	weep	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	6	advmod	_	_
6	bitterly	bitterly	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	refused	refuse	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
10	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	aux:pass	_	_
11	comforted	comfort	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **weep** | past | the old lady |  |  |  |  | bitterly *property* | vn breathe-40.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **refuse** | past | the old lady *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn reject-77.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **not** **comfort** | to-infinitive · passive | the old lady *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V ADV-Middle» |

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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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