---
title: I watched those frail glowing shapes drifting through the night, and… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: I watched those frail glowing shapes drifting through the night, and ever as they drifted scattering, under impulse of wind and wave, more and more widely apart. Who acts: I, shapes. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Story of a Tengu[1], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics 
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu\[1\], sentence 109

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I watched those frail glowing shapes drifting through the night, and ever as they drifted scattering, under impulse of wind and wave, more and more widely apart.

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**Who acts:** I, shapes · **What happens:** watch, glow, drift, scatter, wave · **To what, where:** frail, shapes, impulse

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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 (I, shapes), 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:pg8128:27:110
# text = I watched those frail glowing shapes drifting through the night, and ever as they drifted scattering, under impulse of wind and wave, more and more widely apart.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	watched	watch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	those	that	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	frail	frail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	glowing	glow	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
6	shapes	shape	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
7	drifting	drift	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	acl	_	_
8	through	through	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	16	advmod	_	_
14	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	16	mark	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	drifted	drift	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
17	scattering	scatter	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	16	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
19	under	under	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	impulse	impulse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	wind	wind	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	_
23	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	24	cc	_	_
24	wave	wave	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	26	punct	_	_
26	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	24	advmod	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	30	cc	_	_
28	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	29	advmod	_	_
29	widely	widely	ADV	RB	_	30	advmod	_	_
30	apart	apart	ADV	RB	_	26	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
31	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **watch** | past | I | that frail |  |  |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent frail=Theme |
| 2 | **glow** | gerund | I *not said here* | shapes |  |  |  |  | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent shape=Theme |
| 3 | **drift** | gerund | shapes *not said here* |  |  |  | night |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **drift** | past | shapes *= shape* |  |  |  | ever |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **scatter** | gerund | shapes *= shape* *not said here* |  |  | impulse of wind |  |  | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V PP.destination»: agent=Theme under impulse=Destination |
| 6 | **wave** | present | shapes *= shape* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn wink-40.3.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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