---
title: The big boats with holy texts at their prows are not the strangest o… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: The big boats with holy texts at their prows are not the strangest objects on the beach. Who acts: big boats. 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 78

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The big boats with holy texts at their prows are not the strangest objects on the beach.

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**Who acts:** big boats · **What happens:** not be · **To what, where:** strangest objects, beach

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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 (big boats), 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:pg8128:27:79
# text = The big boats with holy texts at their prows are not the strangest objects on the beach.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	boats	boat	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
4	with	with	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	holy	holy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	texts	text	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	prows	prow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	_
10	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
11	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	strangest	strange	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	14	amod	_	_
14	objects	object	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	_
15	on	on	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	beach	beach	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	14	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | present | the big boats with holy texts at boats's prows | the strangest objects |  | the beach |  |  | tree rules |

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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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