---
title: The river-demon sought out the king of the demons and told him the s… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: The river-demon sought out the king of the demons and told him the story. Who acts: river demon. 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 46

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The river-demon sought out the king of the demons and told him the story.

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**Who acts:** river demon · **What happens:** seek out, tell · **To what, where:** king, story · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (river demon), 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:pg75089:16:46
# text = The river-demon sought out the king of the demons and told him the story.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
2	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	demon	demon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	sought	seek	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	out	out	ADP	RP	_	5	compound:prt	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	demons	demon	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	iobj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seek out** | participle | the river demon | the king of the demons |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent king=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the river demon *not said here* | the story | king |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient story=Topic |

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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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