---
title: Sun Hou replied, “I can cut my head off and grow it on again ten tim… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: Sun Hou replied, “I can cut my head off and grow it on again ten times.” Who acts: Sun. 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 85

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Sun Hou replied, “I can cut my head off and grow it on again ten times.”

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**Who acts:** Sun · **What happens:** reply, cut off, grow on · **To what, where:** head · **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 (Sun), 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:pg75089:16:85
# text = Sun Hou replied, “I can cut my head off and grow it on again ten times.”
1	Sun	Sun	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	Hou	Hou	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	flat	_	_
3	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	cut	cut	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	parataxis	_	_
9	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	off	off	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	grow	grow	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
14	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	_
16	again	again	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
17	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
18	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | past | Sun |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **cut off** *in a quote* | can | Sun | my head |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector head=Eventuality |
| 3 | **grow on** *in a quote* | infinitive | Sun *not said here* | head |  |  | again; time |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location it=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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