---
title: A swarm of ants scenting the honey crawled up to eat it, and thus ou… — Gleanings from Chinese folklore · tree and pragmatics
description: A swarm of ants scenting the honey crawled up to eat it, and thus outlined the characters very distinctly. Who acts: ants, swarm. 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 96

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A swarm of ants scenting the honey crawled up to eat it, and thus outlined the characters very distinctly.

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**Who acts:** ants, swarm · **What happens:** scent, crawl up, eat, outline · **To what, where:** honey, characters

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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 (ants, swarm), 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:pg75089:9:96
# text = A swarm of ants scenting the honey crawled up to eat it, and thus outlined the characters very distinctly.
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	swarm	swarm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	ants	ant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	nmod	_	_
5	scenting	scent	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	acl	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	honey	honey	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	crawled	crawl	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	up	up	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
15	thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	outlined	outline	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	characters	character	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	_
19	very	very	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	_
20	distinctly	distinctly	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **scent** | gerund | ants *not said here* | the honey |  |  |  |  | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent honey=Destination |
| 2 | **crawl up** | past | a swarm of ants |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | a swarm of ants *not said here* | honey |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |
| 4 | **outline** *speech: other* | past |  | the characters |  |  |  | distinctly, thus *property* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent character=Topic |

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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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