---
title: _ Like monkeys trying to snatch the moon’s reflection on water. — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: _ Like monkeys trying to snatch the moon’s reflection on water. Who acts: monkeys. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 1, 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/pg8128/24/62/)

<!-- 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/) / [Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/24/) / 62

# In Ghostly Japan, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 1, sentence 62

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
\_ Like monkeys trying to snatch the moon’s reflection on water.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** monkeys · **What happens:** try, snatch · **To what, where:** reflection, water

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (monkeys), 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:pg8128:24:63
# text = _ Like monkeys trying to snatch the moon’s reflection on water.
1	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	3	punct	_	_
2	Like	like	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	monkeys	monkey	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
4	trying	try	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	3	acl	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	snatch	snatch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	moon	moon	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’s	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	reflection	reflection	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | gerund | monkeys *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **snatch** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | monkeys *not said here* | the moon's reflection |  | water |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent reflection=Theme |

<!-- .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 61](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/24/61/)
- next →: [sentence 63](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/24/63/)
- ↑ back to [Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/24/)