---
title: Ting Lang knelt at his father’s feet, and when the father saw him th… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: Ting Lang knelt at his father’s feet, and when the father saw him there he felt as though a knife had entered his heart. Who acts: Ting, father. 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
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/19/89/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Gleanings from Chinese folklore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/) / [A Story of Old China, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/19/) / 89

# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 3, sentence 89

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Ting Lang knelt at his father’s feet, and when the father saw him there he felt as though a knife had entered his heart.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Ting, father · **What happens:** kneel, see, feel, enter · **To what, where:** feet, Lang, knife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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, father), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75089:19:89
# text = Ting Lang knelt at his father’s feet, and when the father saw him there he felt as though a knife had entered his heart.
1	Ting	ting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	Lang	Lang	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	knelt	kneel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	’s	's	PART	POS	_	6	case	_	_
8	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	14	advmod	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
14	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	obj	_	_
16	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	_
17	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	felt	feel	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	14	ccomp	_	_
19	as	as	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
21	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	knife	knife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj:pass	_	_
23	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	entered	enter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	advcl	_	_
25	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	26	nmod:poss	_	_
26	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **kneel** | past | Ting |  |  | Lang's father's feet |  | Lang *nsubj* | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent at foot=Location |
| 2 | **see** | past | the father | Lang |  | there |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **feel** | past | father |  |  |  |  |  | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |
| 4 | **enter** | past · perfect · passive |  | a knife |  |  |  | father's heart *obj* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 88](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/19/88/)
- next →: [sentence 90](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/19/90/)
- ↑ back to [A Story of Old China, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/19/)