---
title: Oh! but these things almost broke her tender heart. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: Oh! but these things almost broke her tender heart. Who acts: things. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Miss Nellie N. Russell’s Unique Work, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, Miss Nellie N. Russell’s Unique Work, sentence 27

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Oh! but these things almost broke her tender heart.

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**Who acts:** things · **What happens:** break · **To what, where:** tender heart

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, Miss Nellie N. Russell’s Unique Work. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (things), 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:pg75089:4:27
# text = Oh! but these things almost broke her tender heart.
1	Oh	oh	INTJ	UH	_	7	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	_
3	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
4	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	things	thing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj	_	_
6	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	tender	tender	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	heart	heart	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break** | past | this things | Russell's tender heart |  |  |  | almost *property* | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer heart=Patient |

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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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