---
title: I shall have long years to serve you, and my father is old. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: I shall have long years to serve you, and my father is old. Who acts: I, father. 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 30

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I shall have long years to serve you, and my father is old.

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**Who acts:** I, father · **What happens:** have, serve, be · **To what, where:** you

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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 (I, father), 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:pg75089:7:30
# text = I shall have long years to serve you, and my father is old.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	advcl	_	_
8	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
13	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
14	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | shall | I |  |  |  | year |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **serve** | to-infinitive | I *not said here* | you |  |  |  |  | vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent you=Attribute |
| 3 | **is** | present | my father |  |  |  |  | old *property* | 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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