---
title: I asked if any of the young men now in the settlement could do as mu… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: I asked if any of the young men now in the settlement could do as much. Who acts: I, any. 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 129

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I asked if any of the young men now in the settlement could do as much.

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**Who acts:** I, any · **What happens:** ask, do · **To what, where:** settlement

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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, any), 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:pg8128:27:130
# text = I asked if any of the young men now in the settlement could do as much.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
4	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	14	nsubj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	_
9	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	14	advmod	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	settlement	settlement	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
13	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
15	as	as	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	much	much	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** *a condition, not said to happen* | could | any of the young men |  |  | the settlement | now |  | vn act-114-1 «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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