---
title: “How could so many people attack one man unless there was a good rea… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: “How could so many people attack one man unless there was a good reason? Who acts: many people, good reason. 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 83

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“How could so many people attack one man unless there was a good reason?

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**Who acts:** many people, good reason · **What happens:** attack, be · **To what, where:** one man

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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 (many people, good reason), 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:pg75089:20:83
# text = “How could so many people attack one man unless there was a good reason?
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	many	many	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
7	attack	attack	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	unless	unless	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
12	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	good	good	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **attack** *in a quote* | present | many people | one man |  |  |  |  | vn attack-60.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent man=Patient |
| 2 | **be** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | past | a good reason |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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