---
title: Wherefore there is surely more than a little truth in the ancient be… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: Wherefore there is surely more than a little truth in the ancient belief that the speech of the dead is the roar of the sea. Who acts: more, speech. 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 178

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Wherefore there is surely more than a little truth in the ancient belief that the speech of the dead is the roar of the sea.

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**Who acts:** more, speech · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** roar

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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 (more, speech), 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:pg8128:27:179
# text = Wherefore there is surely more than a little truth in the ancient belief that the speech of the dead is the roar of the sea.
1	Wherefore	wherefore	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	_
2	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	3	expl	_	_
3	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	surely	surely	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	more	more	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	3	nsubj	_	_
6	than	than	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	truth	truth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	ancient	ancient	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	belief	belief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
14	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	22	mark	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	speech	speech	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nsubj	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	nmod	_	_
20	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	22	cop	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	roar	roar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	acl	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | present | more than a little truth in the ancient belief |  |  | there |  | wherefore *property* | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **is a** | present | the speech of the dead | the roar |  |  |  | of the sea | tree rules |

<!-- .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.

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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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