---
title: “Honoured mother, don’t come a step, I am unworthy.” — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: “Honoured mother, don’t come a step, I am unworthy.” Who acts: Honoured mother, son. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Story of Old China, part 4, sentence 134

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“Honoured mother, don’t come a step, I am unworthy.”

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**Who acts:** Honoured mother, son · **What happens:** honour, not come, be · **To what, where:** step

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Story of Old China, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Honoured mother, son), 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:pg75089:20:134
# text = “Honoured mother, don’t come a step, I am unworthy.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Honoured	honour	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	amod	_	_
3	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
5	do	do	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	step	step	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	unworthy	unworthy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **honour** *in a quote* | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **come** *in a quote* | infinitive · do-support | Honoured mother | a step |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location step=Theme |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | son |  |  |  |  | unworthy *property* | 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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