---
title: Certainly this emotion was older than I by thousands of thousands of… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: Certainly this emotion was older than I by thousands of thousands of centuries,—the inherited sum of numberless terrors ancestral. Who acts: emotion. 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 171

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Certainly this emotion was older than I by thousands of thousands of centuries,—the inherited sum of numberless terrors ancestral.

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**Who acts:** emotion · **What happens:** be, inherit, sum · **To what, where:** numberless terrors

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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 (emotion), 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:pg8128:27:172
# text = Certainly this emotion was older than I by thousands of thousands of centuries,—the inherited sum of numberless terrors ancestral.
1	Certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
2	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
3	emotion	emotion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
5	older	old	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	0	root	_	_
6	than	than	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	obl	_	_
8	by	by	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	thousands	thousand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	thousands	thousand	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
12	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	centuries	century	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	—	-	PUNCT	:	_	22	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
17	inherited	inherit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	amod	_	_
18	sum	sum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
19	of	of	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
20	numberless	numberless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	terrors	terror	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	nmod	_	_
22	ancestral	ancestral	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | this emotion |  |  |  |  | than I; by thousands of thousands of centuries; sum ancestral *obl*; certainly, old *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **inherit** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **sum** |  |  | numberless terrors |  |  |  |  | nom sum «possession transitive»: of=patient |

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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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