---
title: They exerted all their combined strength but could not remove the da… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: They exerted all their combined strength but could not remove the darkness. 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 122

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They exerted all their combined strength but could not remove the darkness.

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**Who acts:** feet · **What happens:** exert, combine, not remove · **To what, where:** combined strength, 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:pg75089:16:122
# text = They exerted all their combined strength but could not remove the darkness.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	exerted	exert	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	6	det:predet	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
5	combined	combine	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	amod	_	_
6	strength	strength	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	remove	remove	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	darkness	darkness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **exert** | past | feet *= foot* | feet's combined strength |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent strength=Theme |
| 2 | **combine** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn mix-22.1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **not** **remove** | could | feet *= foot* *not said here* | the darkness |  |  |  |  | vn fire-10.10 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent darkness=Theme |

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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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