---
title: _ Even an untruth may serve as a device. — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: _ Even an untruth may serve as a device. Who acts: untruth. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 2, sentence 202

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\_ Even an untruth may serve as a device.

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**Who acts:** untruth · **What happens:** serve

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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 (untruth), 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:pg8128:25:202
# text = _ Even an untruth may serve as a device.
1	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	6	punct	_	_
2	Even	even	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
3	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	untruth	untruth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
7	as	as	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	device	device	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **serve** | may | a untruth |  |  |  |  | as a device | vn masquerade-29.6-2 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Agent as device=Attribute |

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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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