---
title: He spoke with the utmost tenderness, pressing her the while. — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: He spoke with the utmost tenderness, pressing her the while. Who acts: Buddha. 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.
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, Morning Awakening After a Night’s Rest in a Temple, part 3, sentence 57

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He spoke with the utmost tenderness, pressing her the while.

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**Who acts:** Buddha · **What happens:** speak, press · **To what, where:** rite · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Buddha), 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:pg8128:26:57
# text = He spoke with the utmost tenderness, pressing her the while.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	utmost	utmost	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	tenderness	tenderness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
8	pressing	press	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
9	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	while	while	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | Buddha |  |  |  |  | with the utmost tenderness | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with tenderness=Co-Agent |
| 2 | **press** | gerund | Buddha *not said here* | rite |  |  | while |  | vn push-12-1-1 «NP V NP ADJP-Result»: agent=Agent she=Result |

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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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