---
title: They walked all around it but could not get out. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: They walked all around it but could not get out. Who acts: feet. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, T’ang Sung’s Journey to Get the Buddhist Classics, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, T’ang Sung’s Journey to Get the Buddhist Classics, sentence 121

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They walked all around it but could not get out.

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**Who acts:** feet · **What happens:** walk, not get out · **To what, where:** darkness

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, T’ang Sung’s Journey to Get the Buddhist Classics. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (feet), 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:pg75089:16:121
# text = They walked all around it but could not get out.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	walked	walk	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	all	all	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
4	around	around	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obl	_	_
6	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	9	cc	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
10	out	out	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **walk** | past | feet *= foot* |  |  | darkness |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme around it=Trajectory |
| 2 | **not** **get out** | could | feet *= foot* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | out *property* | vn withdraw-82-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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