---
title: “It would serve to explain some popular ideas of the supernatural wh… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: “It would serve to explain some popular ideas of the supernatural which Western people know very little about. Who acts: part, Western people. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Names of Incense Used., part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, Names of Incense Used., part 3, sentence 6

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“It would serve to explain some popular ideas of the supernatural which Western people know very little about.

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**Who acts:** part, Western people · **What happens:** serve, explain, know · **To what, where:** popular ideas

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This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Names of Incense Used., part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (part, Western people), 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:pg8128:5:6
# text = “It would serve to explain some popular ideas of the supernatural which Western people know very little about.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	serve	serve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	explain	explain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	xcomp	_	_
7	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	9	det	_	_
8	popular	popular	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	ideas	idea	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	supernatural	supernatural	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	_
13	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	16	obj	_	_
14	Western	western	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	nsubj	_	_
16	know	know	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	acl:relcl	_	_
17	very	very	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
18	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	obj	_	_
19	about	about	ADP	IN	_	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **serve** *in a quote* | would | part |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **explain** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | to-infinitive | part *not said here* | some popular ideas of the supernatural |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent idea=Topic |
| 3 | **know** *in a quote* | present | Western people | some popular ideas of the supernatural |  |  |  |  | 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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