---
title: I have failed in my promise to my mother.” — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: I have failed in my promise to my mother.” Who acts: I, my. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 3

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I have failed in my promise to my mother.”

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**Who acts:** I, my · **What happens:** fail, promise · **To what, where:** promise

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I, my), 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:pg75089:19:3
# text = I have failed in my promise to my mother.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	failed	fail	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
4	in	in	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	promise	promise	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
7	to	to	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fail** | present · perfect | I |  |  | my promise to my mother |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V PP.eventuality S\_ING»: agent=Agent in promise=Eventuality |
| 2 | **promise** |  | my |  |  |  |  | to my mother | nom promise «communication transitive»: poss=agent to=obl |

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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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