---
title: Before me and about me there is nothing but skulls of men.” — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: Before me and about me there is nothing but skulls of men.” Who acts: nothing. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Opening, 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/pg8128/1/41/)

<!-- 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/) / [In Ghostly Japan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/) / [Opening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/1/) / 41

# In Ghostly Japan, Opening, sentence 41

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Before me and about me there is nothing but skulls of men.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** nothing · **What happens:** be

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (nothing), 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:pg8128:1:41
# text = Before me and about me there is nothing but skulls of men.”
1	Before	before	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	obl	_	_
3	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
4	about	about	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	conj	_	_
6	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	7	expl	_	_
7	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	7	nsubj	_	_
9	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	skulls	skull	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	conj	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | nothing  skulls of men |  |  | there | before me |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before i=Location |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 40](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/1/40/)
- next →: [sentence 42](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/1/42/)
- ↑ back to [Opening](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/1/)