---
title: They could not understand what had taken place. — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: They could not understand what had taken place. Who acts: physicians. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 3, 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/pg8128/26/105/)

<!-- 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/pg8128/26/) / 105

# In Ghostly Japan, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 3, sentence 105

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They could not understand what had taken place.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** physicians · **What happens:** not understand, take · **To what, where:** place

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (physicians), 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:pg8128:26:105
# text = They could not understand what had taken place.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
7	taken	take	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	xcomp	_	_
8	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **understand** | could | physicians *= physician* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **take** | past · perfect · passive |  | place |  |  |  | what *nsubj:pass* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP ADVP»: subject=Theme place=Destination |

<!-- .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 104](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/26/104/)
- next →: [sentence 106](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/26/106/)
- ↑ back to [Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/26/)