---
title: He used to be a great reader of Buddhist books. — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: He used to be a great reader of Buddhist books. Who acts: Niimi. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Names of Incense Used., part 2, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, Names of Incense Used., part 2, sentence 92

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He used to be a great reader of Buddhist books.

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**Who acts:** Niimi · **What happens:** use, be · **To what, where:** great reader

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This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Names of Incense Used., part 2. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Niimi), 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:pg8128:4:92
# text = He used to be a great reader of Buddhist books.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	used	use	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	reader	reader	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	advcl	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	Buddhist	Buddhist	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	compound	_	_
10	books	book	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | past | Niimi |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | to-infinitive | Niimi *not said here* | a great reader |  |  |  | of Buddhist books | 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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