---
title: Finding a long stick, he began filling the hole with earth. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: Finding a long stick, he began filling the hole with earth. Who acts: Han. A sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Chinese Hero, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Chinese Hero, sentence 13

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Finding a long stick, he began filling the hole with earth.

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**Who acts:** Han · **What happens:** find, begin, fill · **To what, where:** long stick, hole

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This is a sentence of «Gleanings from Chinese folklore» by Nellie Naomi Russell, A Chinese Hero. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Han), 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:pg75089:9:13
# text = Finding a long stick, he began filling the hole with earth.
1	Finding	find	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	stick	stick	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	filling	fill	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	xcomp	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **find** | gerund | Han *not said here* | a long stick |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stick=Topic |
| 2 | **begin** | past | Han |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **fill** | gerund | Han *not said here* | the hole |  |  |  | with earth | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent hole=Patient with earth=Instrument |

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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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