---
title: The bottom was a piece of thick plank, perfectly square, and measuri… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: The bottom was a piece of thick plank, perfectly square, and measuring about ten inches across. Who acts: bottom. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Story of a Tengu[1], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu\[1\], sentence 101

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The bottom was a piece of thick plank, perfectly square, and measuring about ten inches across.

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**Who acts:** bottom · **What happens:** be, measure · **To what, where:** piece

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This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Story of a Tengu\[1\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bottom), 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:pg8128:27:102
# text = The bottom was a piece of thick plank, perfectly square, and measuring about ten inches across.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	bottom	bottom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	thick	thick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	plank	plank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	perfectly	perfectly	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	square	square	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
14	measuring	measure	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	17	amod	_	_
15	about	about	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	ten	ten	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	17	nummod	_	_
17	inches	inch	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	conj	_	_
18	across	across	ADV	RB	_	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | the bottom | a piece and square and measuring ten inches |  |  |  | of thick plank; square *conj*; measuring ten inches *conj* | tree rules |
| 2 | **measure** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn register-54.1-2-1 «NP V NP.value»: agent=Theme |

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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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