---
title: Wherefore they could not desire to hush the tones of pain: it would… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: Wherefore they could not desire to hush the tones of pain: it would spoil their music! Who acts: gods, life. 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 190

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Wherefore they could not desire to hush the tones of pain: it would spoil their music!

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**Who acts:** gods, life · **What happens:** not desire, hush, spoil, intonate · **To what, where:** tones, music, pain

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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 (gods, life), 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:pg8128:27:191
# text = Wherefore they could not desire to hush the tones of pain: it would spoil their music!
1	Wherefore	wherefore	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	desire	desire	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	hush	hush	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	tones	tone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	pain	pain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	15	punct	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	spoil	spoil	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
16	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	17	nmod:poss	_	_
17	music	music	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **desire** | could | gods *= god* |  |  |  |  | wherefore *property* | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **hush** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | gods *= god* *not said here* | the tones of pain |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent tone=Patient |
| 3 | **spoil** | would | life | gods's music |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **intonate** |  |  | pain |  |  |  |  | nom tone «communication 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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