---
title: The Kappa is a water-goblin, haunting rivers especially. — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: The Kappa is a water-goblin, haunting rivers especially. Who acts: Kappa, water goblin. 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 127

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The Kappa is a water-goblin, haunting rivers especially.

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**Who acts:** Kappa, water goblin · **What happens:** be, haunt · **To what, where:** water goblin, rivers

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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 (Kappa, water goblin), 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:pg8128:27:128
# text = The Kappa is a water-goblin, haunting rivers especially.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	Kappa	Kappa	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	7	cop	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
5	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	goblin	goblin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
9	haunting	haunt	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	7	acl	_	_
10	rivers	river	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
11	especially	especially	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | the Kappa | a water goblin |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **haunt** | gerund | a water goblin *not said here* | rivers |  |  |  | especially *property* | vn amuse-31.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Stimulus river=Experiencer |

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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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