---
title: Mr. Tu was appointed to superintend the distribution of famine relie… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: Mr. Tu was appointed to superintend the distribution of famine relief in the province of Shan Tung. 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 7

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Mr. Tu was appointed to superintend the distribution of famine relief in the province of Shan Tung.

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**What happens:** appoint, superintend, distribute · **To what, where:** Tu, distribution, province, famine relief

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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: 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:pg75089:17:7
# text = Mr. Tu was appointed to superintend the distribution of famine relief in the province of Shan Tung.
1	Mr.	Mr.	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nmod:desc	_	_
2	Tu	Tu	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	appointed	appoint	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	superintend	superintend	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	distribution	distribution	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	famine	famine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	_
11	relief	relief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	province	province	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	Shan	Shan	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
17	Tung	Tung	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	flat	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **appoint** | past · passive |  | Tu  Mr. |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **superintend** | to-infinitive |  | the distribution of famine relief |  | the province of Shan |  |  | vn supervision-95.2.2 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent distribution=Theme |
| 3 | **distribute** |  |  | famine relief |  |  |  |  | nom distribution «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

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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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