The grateful elephant, Opening, part 1, sentence 207

And again: “The head of every person has been cut off so many times in the course of his past lives, either as a human being or as an animal, as to cause him to shed blood more abundant than all the water contained in the four great oceans.”

Who acts: water · What happens: cut off, be, cause, shed, contain · To what, where: head, course, water, blood, four great oceans

This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (water), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

Mova's own parse. This tree may be wrong.

The tree

The words, one row each (CoNLL-U)

#	word	lemma	UPOS	features	head	relation
1	And	and	CCONJ	_	2 again	cc
2	again	again	ADV	_	root	root
3	:	:	PUNCT	_	12 cut	punct
4	“	"	PUNCT	_	12 cut	punct
5	The	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	6 head	det
6	head	head	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 cut	nsubj:pass
7	of	of	ADP	_	9 person	case
8	every	every	DET	PronType=Tot	9 person	det
9	person	person	NOUN	Number=Sing	6 head	nmod
10	has	have	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	12 cut	aux
11	been	be	AUX	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part	12 cut	aux:pass
12	cut	cut	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	2 again	advcl
13	off	off	ADP	_	12 cut	compound:prt
14	so	so	ADV	_	15 many	advmod
15	many	many	ADJ	Degree=Pos	16 times	amod
16	times	time	NOUN	Number=Plur	12 cut	obl:unmarked
17	in	in	ADP	_	19 course	case
18	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	19 course	det
19	course	course	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 cut	obl
20	of	of	ADP	_	23 lives	case
21	his	his	PRON	Case=Gen Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs	23 lives	nmod:poss
22	past	past	ADJ	Degree=Pos	23 lives	amod
23	lives	life	NOUN	Number=Plur	19 course	nmod
24	,	,	PUNCT	_	33 animal	punct
25	either	either	CCONJ	_	33 animal	cc:preconj
26	as	as	SCONJ	_	33 animal	mark
27	a	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	33 animal	det
28	human	human	ADJ	Degree=Pos	33 animal	amod
29	being	be	AUX	Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part	33 animal	cop
30	or	or	CCONJ	_	33 animal	cc
31	as	as	ADP	_	33 animal	case
32	an	a	DET	Definite=Ind PronType=Art	33 animal	det
33	animal	animal	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 cut	obl
34	,	,	PUNCT	_	37 cause	punct
35	as	as	SCONJ	_	37 cause	mark
36	to	to	PART	_	37 cause	mark
37	cause	cause	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	12 cut	conj
38	him	he	PRON	Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs	37 cause	obj
39	to	to	PART	_	40 shed	mark
40	shed	shed	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	37 cause	xcomp
41	blood	blood	NOUN	Number=Sing	40 shed	obj
42	more	more	ADV	Degree=Cmp	43 abundant	advmod
43	abundant	abundant	ADJ	Degree=Pos	40 shed	xcomp
44	than	than	ADP	_	47 water	case
45	all	all	DET	PronType=Tot	47 water	det:predet
46	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	47 water	det
47	water	water	NOUN	Number=Sing	43 abundant	obl
48	contained	contain	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	47 water	acl
49	in	in	ADP	_	53 oceans	case
50	the	the	DET	Definite=Def PronType=Art	53 oceans	det
51	four	four	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	53 oceans	nummod
52	great	great	ADJ	Degree=Pos	53 oceans	amod
53	oceans	ocean	NOUN	Number=Plur	48 contained	obl
54	.	.	PUNCT	_	12 cut	punct
55	”	"	PUNCT	_	2 again	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	where	when	other	roles by
1	cut off in a quote	present · perfect · passive		the head of every person	the course of water's past lives	time		vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: subject=Eventuality
2	is in a quote	gerund					as a human animal	tree rules
3	cause in a quote	to-infinitive		water				tree rules
4	shed in a quote	to-infinitive	water not said here	blood			abundant property	vn substance_emission-43.4-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location blood=Source
5	contain in a quote	participle		all water not said here	the four great oceans			vn fit-54.3 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent in ocean=Location

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.

Text: «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Project Gutenberg book 74064 (public domain in the USA). Tree: Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. Frames: Mova's frames reader (prag), the chapter read in order.

This page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/1/207/

🌲 The grateful elephant, Opening, part 1, sentence 207

The tree

Pragmatics

The grateful elephant, Opening, part 1, sentence 207