---
title: He whose bride is a ghost cannot live. — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: He whose bride is a ghost cannot live. Who acts: bride, ghost. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Names of Incense Used., part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, Names of Incense Used., part 4, sentence 27

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He whose bride is a ghost cannot live.

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**Who acts:** bride, ghost · **What happens:** be, not live · **To what, where:** ghost

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This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Names of Incense Used., part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bride, ghost), 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:pg8128:6:27
# text = He whose bride is a ghost cannot live.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	3	nmod:poss	_	_
3	bride	bride	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	ghost	ghost	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | a ghost's bride | a ghost |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **live** | can | a ghost *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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