---
title: What need have I of sons?” — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: What need have I of sons?” Who acts: I. 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 41

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What need have I of sons?”

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** need, have

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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), 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:pg75089:7:41
# text = What need have I of sons?”
1	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	2	nsubj	_	_
2	need	need	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	sons	son	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **need** | present |  |  |  |  |  | What *nsubj* | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **have** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: 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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