---
title: Children often amuse themselves by making little Buddhist images of… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: Children often amuse themselves by making little Buddhist images of mud, which melt into shapelessness, of course, if placed in water. Who acts: Children, little Buddhist images. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 2, with its 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/25/189/)

<!-- 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/pg8128/25/) / 189

# In Ghostly Japan, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 2, sentence 189

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Children often amuse themselves by making little Buddhist images of mud, which melt into shapelessness, of course, if placed in water.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Children, little Buddhist images · **What happens:** amuse, make, melt, place, image · **To what, where:** sins, little Buddhist images, shapelessness, water, mud

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Children, little Buddhist images), 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:pg8128:25:189
# text = Children often amuse themselves by making little Buddhist images of mud, which melt into shapelessness, of course, if placed in water.
1	Children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
2	often	often	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	amuse	amuse	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	themselves	themselves	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	3	obj	_	_
5	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
6	making	make	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
7	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
8	Buddhist	buddhist	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	images	image	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	mud	mud	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	14	nsubj	_	_
14	melt	melt	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
15	into	into	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	shapelessness	shapelessness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADV	22	advmod	_	_
19	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
21	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
22	placed	place	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	conj	_	_
23	in	in	ADP	IN	_	24	case	_	_
24	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **amuse** | present | Children | sins *= sin* |  |  |  | often *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus themselves=Experiencer |
| 2 | **make** | gerund | Children *not said here* | little Buddhist images of mud |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset image=Product |
| 3 | **melt** | present | little Buddhist images of mud |  |  | shapelessness |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP.material V PP.product»: agent=Material into shapelessness=Product |
| 4 | **place** *a condition, not said to happen* | participle | Children *not said here* |  |  | water |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent in water=Destination |
| 5 | **image** |  |  | mud |  |  |  |  | nom image «cognition transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .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 188](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/25/188/)
- next →: [sentence 190](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/25/190/)
- ↑ back to [Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/25/)