---
title: She decided to marry rather than to kill him. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: She decided to marry rather than to kill him. Who acts: Ting. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Tartar Joan of Arc, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Tartar Joan of Arc, sentence 28

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She decided to marry rather than to kill him.

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**Who acts:** Ting · **What happens:** decide, marry, kill · **To what, where:** general

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Tartar Joan of Arc. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Ting), 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:pg75089:6:28
# text = She decided to marry rather than to kill him.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	decided	decide	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	marry	marry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	rather	rather	ADV	RB	ExtPos=CCONJ	8	cc	_	_
6	than	than	ADP	IN	_	5	fixed	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
9	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **decide** | past | Ting |  |  |  |  |  | vn correspond-36.1-1 «NP V what S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **marry** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Ting *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn amalgamate-22.2-3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |
| 3 | **kill** | to-infinitive | Ting *not said here* | general |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=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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