---
title: I also once had a boy! — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: I also once had a boy! Who acts: I. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, A Mother’s Remembrance, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, A Mother’s Remembrance, sentence 2

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I also once had a boy!

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** have · **To what, where:** boy

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This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, A Mother’s Remembrance. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg8128:11:2
# text = I also once had a boy!
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	also	also	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
3	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	4	advmod	_	_
4	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | I | a boy |  |  |  | once *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent boy=Patient |

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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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