---
title: His wife and children mourned and fasted, but “Alas! what can we do?… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: His wife and children mourned and fasted, but “Alas! what can we do?” was their hopeless cry. Who acts: we. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Daughter of the Orient, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Daughter of the Orient, sentence 12

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His wife and children mourned and fasted, but “Alas! what can we do?” was their hopeless cry.

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**Who acts:** we · **What happens:** mourn, fast, do, be · **To what, where:** children, hopeless cry, wife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Daughter of the Orient. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we), 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:pg75089:7:12
# text = His wife and children mourned and fasted, but “Alas! what can we do?” was their hopeless cry.
1	His	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	2	nmod:poss	_	_
2	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
4	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	conj	_	_
5	mourned	mourn	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	acl	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	fasted	fast	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	22	cc	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	16	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
13	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
15	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	22	csubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
20	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	22	nmod:poss	_	_
21	hopeless	hopeless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	cry	cry	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **mourn** | participle |  | children *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn marvel-31.3 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **fast** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **do** *in a quote* | can | we | children's hopeless cry |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |
| 4 | **be** *speech: express* | past |  | children's hopeless cry |  |  |  | children *= child* *nmod:poss* | 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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