---
title: A few days later a servant of Nien Chi’s came with a letter and some… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: A few days later a servant of Nien Chi’s came with a letter and some very beautiful presents. Who acts: servant. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/17/45/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Gleanings from Chinese folklore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/) / [A Story of Old China, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/17/) / 45

# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 1, sentence 45

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
A few days later a servant of Nien Chi’s came with a letter and some very beautiful presents.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** servant · **What happens:** come

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (servant), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75089:17:45
# text = A few days later a servant of Nien Chi’s came with a letter and some very beautiful presents.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	few	few	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	days	day	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
4	later	late	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	11	advmod	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	servant	servant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	Nien	Nien	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	compound	_	_
9	Chi	Chi	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	’s	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	letter	letter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
16	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	19	det	_	_
17	very	very	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	beautiful	beautiful	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
19	presents	present	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | a servant of Nien Chi |  |  |  |  | with a letter and some beautiful presents; late *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 44](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/17/44/)
- next →: [sentence 46](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/17/46/)
- ↑ back to [A Story of Old China, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/17/)