---
title: “Mother, I am going now to seek my father. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: “Mother, I am going now to seek my father. Who acts: Mother. 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 48

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“Mother, I am going now to seek my father.

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**Who acts:** Mother · **What happens:** go, seek · **To what, where:** father

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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 (Mother), 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:pg75089:18:48
# text = “Mother, I am going now to seek my father.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
5	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	seek	seek	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
10	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** *in a quote* | present · progressive | Mother |  |  |  | now | I *nsubj* | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **seek** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | Mother *not said here* | my father |  |  |  |  | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent father=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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