---
title: As he did so, the characters appeared in white on the blackened surf… — In Ghostly Japan · tree and pragmatics
description: As he did so, the characters appeared in white on the blackened surface. Who acts: friend, characters. A sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Names of Incense Used., part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# In Ghostly Japan, Names of Incense Used., part 5, sentence 130

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As he did so, the characters appeared in white on the blackened surface.

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**Who acts:** friend, characters · **What happens:** do, appear, blacken · **To what, where:** white

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This is a sentence of «In Ghostly Japan» by Lafcadio Hearn, Names of Incense Used., part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (friend, characters), 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:pg8128:7:131
# text = As he did so, the characters appeared in white on the blackened surface.
1	As	as	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	characters	character	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
8	appeared	appear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	obl	_	_
11	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	blackened	blacken	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	amod	_	_
14	surface	surface	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past | friend |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **appear** | past | the characters |  |  | white |  | on the blackened surface | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in white=Location |
| 3 | **blacken** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

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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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