---
title: He came here twelve years ago. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: He came here twelve years ago. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 2, sentence 113

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He came here twelve years ago.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** come

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg75089:18:113
# text = He came here twelve years ago.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
4	twelve	twelve	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	5	nummod	_	_
5	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl:unmarked	_	_
6	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | boy |  |  | here |  | ago *property* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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