---
title: They had caught the bird in a snare, and were beating it with sticks. — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: They had caught the bird in a snare, and were beating it with sticks. 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 8

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They had caught the bird in a snare, and were beating it with sticks.

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**What happens:** catch, beat · **To what, where:** boys, snare

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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: 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:pg8128:27:8
# text = They had caught the bird in a snare, and were beating it with sticks.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	caught	catch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	snare	snare	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux	_	_
12	beating	beat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	3	advcl	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	with	with	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **catch** | past · perfect · passive |  | boys *= boy* |  | a snare |  | the bird *obj* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: subject=Beneficiary bird=Theme |
| 2 | **beat** | past · progressive |  | snare |  |  |  | with sticks | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent it=Patient with stick=Instrument |

<!-- .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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