---
title: “And was she perfect?” you ask. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: “And was she perfect?” you ask. Who acts: Miss, perfect. 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 80

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“And was she perfect?” you ask.

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**Who acts:** Miss, perfect · **What happens:** be, ask · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Miss, perfect), 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:pg75089:4:80
# text = “And was she perfect?” you ask.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	perfect	perfect	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	ask	ask	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *in a quote* | past | Miss |  |  |  |  | perfect *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **ask** *speech: ask* | present | perfect |  |  |  |  | you *nsubj* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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