---
title: Incense-burning has been an amusement of the aristocracy ever since… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: Incense-burning has been an amusement of the aristocracy ever since the thirteenth century. Who acts: Incense burning. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Opening, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, Opening, sentence 163

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Incense-burning has been an amusement of the aristocracy ever since the thirteenth century.

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**Who acts:** Incense burning · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** amusement

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This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Opening. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Incense burning), 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:pg8128:1:166
# text = Incense-burning has been an amusement of the aristocracy ever since the thirteenth century.
1	Incense	incense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	burning	burning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
4	has	have	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
5	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	7	cop	_	_
6	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	amusement	amusement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	aristocracy	aristocracy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
11	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	15	advmod	_	_
12	since	since	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	thirteenth	thirteenth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	century	century	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present · perfect | Incense burning | a amusement |  |  |  | of the aristocracy since the thirteenth century | tree rules |

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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:** «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Project Gutenberg book 8128 (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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