---
title: “A mountain of skulls it is,” responded the Bodhisattva. — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: “A mountain of skulls it is,” responded the Bodhisattva. Who acts: Mountain. 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 44

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“A mountain of skulls it is,” responded the Bodhisattva.

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**Who acts:** Mountain · **What happens:** be, respond · **To what, where:** mountain, Bodhisattva · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Mountain), 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:pg8128:1:44
# text = “A mountain of skulls it is,” responded the Bodhisattva.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	mountain	mountain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	skulls	skull	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
7	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
10	responded	respond	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Bodhisattva	Bodhisattva	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | Mountain | a mountain |  |  |  | of skulls | tree rules |
| 2 | **respond** *speech: other* | past | a mountain | the Bodhisattva |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent bodhisattva=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:** «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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