---
title: Han Hsin could not even for half an hour hold up the great iron spea… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: Han Hsin could not even for half an hour hold up the great iron spear, and he was driven with laughter and derision from the court. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/9/34/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Gleanings from Chinese folklore](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/) / [A Chinese Hero](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/9/) / 34

# Gleanings from Chinese folklore, A Chinese Hero, sentence 34

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Han Hsin could not even for half an hour hold up the great iron spear, and he was driven with laughter and derision from the court.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Han · **What happens:** hold up, drive · **To what, where:** great iron spear, Han, court

<!-- .vabout -->
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.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg75089:9:34
# text = Han Hsin could not even for half an hour hold up the great iron spear, and he was driven with laughter and derision from the court.
1	Han	Han	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
2	Hsin	Hsin	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	flat	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
5	even	even	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	half	half	DET	PDT	NumForm=Word|NumType=Frac|PronType=Ind	9	det:predet	_	_
8	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	hold	hold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	up	up	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
13	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	iron	iron	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	spear	spear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux:pass	_	_
20	driven	drive	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
21	with	with	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	laughter	laughter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	derision	derision	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	conj	_	_
25	from	from	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
27	court	court	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hold up** | could | Han | the great iron spear |  |  |  |  | vn support-15.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Pivot spear=Theme |
| 2 | **drive** | past · passive |  | Han |  | the court |  | with laughter and derision | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V NP PP.location»: subject=Theme from court=Trajectory |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/9/33/)
- next →: [sentence 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/9/35/)
- ↑ back to [A Chinese Hero](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg75089/9/)