---
title: Ting Lang knelt and knocked his head to his second mother. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: Ting Lang knelt and knocked his head to his second mother. Who acts: Ting. 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 56

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Ting Lang knelt and knocked his head to his second mother.

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**Who acts:** Ting · **What happens:** kneel, knock · **To what, where:** head, second mother

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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 (Ting), 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:pg75089:19:56
# text = Ting Lang knelt and knocked his head to his second mother.
1	Ting	ting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	Lang	Lang	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	appos	_	_
3	knelt	kneel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
5	knocked	knock	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	second	second	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	11	amod	_	_
11	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kneel** | past | Ting |  |  |  |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **knock** | past | Ting *not said here* | Ting's head | Ting's second mother |  |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1 «NP V NP PP.destinations»: agent=Agent head=Theme to mother=Destination |

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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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