---
title: I ask you again only this: have you a family in the north?” — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: I ask you again only this: have you a family in the north?” Who acts: I. 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 99

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I ask you again only this: have you a family in the north?”

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** ask, have · **To what, where:** you, north

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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 (I), 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:pg75089:18:99
# text = I ask you again only this: have you a family in the north?”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	again	again	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
5	only	only	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
8	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
9	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	family	family	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	in	in	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	north	north	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present | I |  | you |  | again |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 2 | **have** | infinitive |  | you |  | the north |  | a family *obj* | 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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