---
title: There is a folk-saying of the coast:—“_The Sea has a soul and hears_.” — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: There is a folk-saying of the coast:—“_The Sea has a soul and hears_.” Who acts: folk saying, Sea. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Story of a Tengu[1], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/27/157/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [In Ghostly Japan](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/) / [Story of a Tengu\[1\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/27/) / 157

# In Ghostly Japan, Story of a Tengu\[1\], sentence 157

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
There is a folk-saying of the coast:—“\_The Sea has a soul and hears\_.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** folk saying, Sea · **What happens:** be, have, hear, say · **To what, where:** soul, coast · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (folk saying, Sea), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg8128:27:158
# text = There is a folk-saying of the coast:—“_The Sea has a soul and hears_.”
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	folk	folk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	saying	saying	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	coast	coast	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	Sea	Sea	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nsubj	_	_
16	has	have	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	soul	soul	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	hears	hear	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	20	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | a folk saying of the coast |  |  | there |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** *in a quote* | present | the Sea | a soul |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent soul=Patient |
| 3 | **hear** *in a quote* | present | the Sea *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer |
| 4 | **say** |  |  | the coast |  |  |  |  | nom saying «communication transitive»: of=patient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 156](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/27/156/)
- next →: [sentence 158](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/27/158/)
- ↑ back to [Story of a Tengu\[1\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8128/27/)