---
title: To please them and for the sport of it, the Prince started out again. — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: To please them and for the sport of it, the Prince started out again. Who acts: Prince, sport. 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 44

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To please them and for the sport of it, the Prince started out again.

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**Who acts:** Prince, sport · **What happens:** please, start out, sport · **To what, where:** teachers

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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 (Prince, sport), 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:pg75089:9:44
# text = To please them and for the sport of it, the Prince started out again.
1	To	to	PART	TO	_	2	mark	_	_
2	please	please	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	advcl	_	_
3	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	sport	sport	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	conj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Prince	Prince	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
14	out	out	ADP	RP	_	13	compound:prt	_	_
15	again	again	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **please** | to-infinitive | the Prince *not said here* | teachers *= teacher* |  |  |  |  | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus they=Experiencer |
| 2 | **start out** | past | the Prince |  |  |  | again |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |
| 3 | **sport** |  | sport |  |  |  |  |  | nom sport «act intransitive»: of=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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