---
title: But when fisher-folk swim like that, it is only to save their lives.” — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: But when fisher-folk swim like that, it is only to save their lives.” Who acts: fisher folk, folk. 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 133

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But when fisher-folk swim like that, it is only to save their lives.”

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**Who acts:** fisher folk, folk · **What happens:** swim, be

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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 (fisher folk, folk), 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:pg8128:27:134
# text = But when fisher-folk swim like that, it is only to save their lives.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
2	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	6	mark	_	_
3	fisher	fisher	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	folk	folk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
6	swim	swim	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	advcl	_	_
7	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	only	only	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
13	to	to	PART	TO	_	14	mark	_	_
14	save	save	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
15	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | present | fisher folk |  |  |  |  | like that | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is** | present | folk |  |  |  |  | children's lives *obj*; save *property* | tree rules |

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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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