---
title: Sir, we were told that you had died.” — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: Sir, we were told that you had died.” Who acts: you. 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 89

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Sir, we were told that you had died.”

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** tell, die · **To what, where:** Sir · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (you), 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:pg8128:5:90
# text = Sir, we were told that you had died.”
1	Sir	sir	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj:pass	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
9	died	die	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | Sir |  |  |  | we *nsubj* | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **die** | past · perfect | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |

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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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