---
title: This he could cook and so keep from starving. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: This he could cook and so keep from starving. Who acts: This. 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 77

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This he could cook and so keep from starving.

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**Who acts:** This · **What happens:** cook, keep, starve

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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 (This), 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:pg75089:18:77
# text = This he could cook and so keep from starving.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	nsubj	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	cook	cook	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	so	so	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
8	from	from	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
9	starving	starve	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cook** | could | This |  |  |  |  | Yang *nsubj* | vn cooking-45.3 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **keep** | infinitive | This *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **starve** | gerund | This *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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