The grateful elephant, Opening, part 1, sentence 236
He taught men not to injure or kill any living creature, whether a human being or an animal, even in self-defense.
Who acts: Buddha · What happens: teach, not injure, kill, be · To what, where: men, self defense, living creature, human animal
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 (Buddha), 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 | He | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 2 taught | nsubj |
| 2 | taught | teach | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | men | man | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 taught | obj |
| 4 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 6 injure | advmod |
| 5 | to | to | PART | _ | 6 injure | mark |
| 6 | injure | injure | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 2 taught | xcomp |
| 7 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 8 kill | cc |
| 8 | kill | kill | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 6 injure | conj |
| 9 | any | any | DET | PronType=Ind | 11 creature | det |
| 10 | living | living | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 11 creature | amod |
| 11 | creature | creature | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 kill | obj |
| 12 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 19 animal | punct |
| 13 | whether | whether | SCONJ | _ | 19 animal | mark |
| 14 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 19 animal | det |
| 15 | human | human | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 19 animal | amod |
| 16 | being | be | AUX | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 19 animal | cop |
| 17 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 19 animal | cc |
| 18 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 19 animal | det |
| 19 | animal | animal | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 injure | conj |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 25 defense | punct |
| 21 | even | even | ADV | _ | 25 defense | advmod |
| 22 | in | in | ADP | _ | 25 defense | case |
| 23 | self | self | NOUN | Number=Sing | 25 defense | compound |
| 24 | - | - | PUNCT | _ | 23 self | punct |
| 25 | defense | defense | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 injure | obl |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 taught | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | teach speech: other | past | Buddha | men | vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent man=Recipient clause=Topic | ||||
| 2 | not injure | to-infinitive | Buddha not said here | self defense | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | kill | infinitive | Buddha not said here | any living creature | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent creature=Theme | ||||
| 4 | is a | gerund | Buddha not said here | a human animal | tree rules |
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/pg74064/1/236/