---
title: Should you make even the least sign of reverence, something very unf… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: Should you make even the least sign of reverence, something very unfortunate might happen to me.” Who acts: you, least sign. 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 38

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Should you make even the least sign of reverence, something very unfortunate might happen to me.”

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**Who acts:** you, least sign · **What happens:** make, happen, sign · **To what, where:** me, reverence

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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 (you, least sign), 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:pg8128:27:38
# text = Should you make even the least sign of reverence, something very unfortunate might happen to me.”
1	Should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
2	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	make	make	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	even	even	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	least	least	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	7	amod	_	_
7	sign	sign	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	reverence	reverence	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	15	nsubj	_	_
12	very	very	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	_
13	unfortunate	unfortunate	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
14	might	might	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	happen	happen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	ccomp	_	_
16	to	to	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
17	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | should | you |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **happen** | might | the least sign of reverence |  | me |  |  | something *nsubj* | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **sign** |  |  | reverence |  |  |  |  | nom sign «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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