---
title: If the gods give us a son, call him Ting Lang.” — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: If the gods give us a son, call him Ting Lang.” Who acts: gods, you. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 1, sentence 105

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If the gods give us a son, call him Ting Lang.”

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**Who acts:** gods, you · **What happens:** give, call · **To what, where:** son, us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gods, you), 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:pg75089:17:105
# text = If the gods give us a son, call him Ting Lang.”
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	gods	god	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	give	give	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	advcl	_	_
5	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
9	call	call	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	Ting	Ting	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	xcomp	_	_
12	Lang	Lang	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	11	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** *a condition, not said to happen* | present | the gods | a son | us |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent we=Recipient son=Theme |
| 2 | **call** | imperative | you *not said here* |  | son |  |  | Ting *xcomp* | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |

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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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