The grateful elephant, Opening, part 12, sentence 110
He said: “Friends, when I was a young elephant, I used to go with this banyan sapling between my thighs.
Who acts: Elephant · What happens: say, be, use, go · To what, where: young elephant · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 12. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Elephant), 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 said | nsubj |
| 2 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 5 Friends | punct |
| 4 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 5 Friends | punct |
| 5 | Friends | friend | NOUN | Number=Plur | 2 said | ccomp |
| 6 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 12 elephant | punct |
| 7 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 12 elephant | advmod |
| 8 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 12 elephant | nsubj |
| 9 | was | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 12 elephant | cop |
| 10 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 12 elephant | det |
| 11 | young | young | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 12 elephant | amod |
| 12 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 Friends | conj |
| 13 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 used | punct |
| 14 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 15 used | nsubj |
| 15 | used | use | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 2 said | conj |
| 16 | to | to | PART | _ | 17 go | mark |
| 17 | go | go | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 15 used | xcomp |
| 18 | with | with | ADP | _ | 21 sapling | case |
| 19 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 21 sapling | det |
| 20 | banyan | banyan | NOUN | Number=Sing | 21 sapling | compound |
| 21 | sapling | sapling | NOUN | Number=Sing | 17 go | obl |
| 22 | between | between | ADP | _ | 24 thighs | case |
| 23 | my | my | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 24 thighs | nmod:poss |
| 24 | thighs | thigh | NOUN | Number=Plur | 21 sapling | nmod |
| 25 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | say speech: assert | past | Elephant | Friends and a young elephant ccomp | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | ||||
| 2 | is a in a quote | past | Elephant | a young elephant | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | use in a quote | past | Elephant | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality | |||||
| 4 | go in a quote | to-infinitive | Elephant not said here | with this banyan sapling between my thighs | vn help-72.1-2 «NP V PP.beneficiary»: agent=Agent with sapling=Beneficiary |
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/pg74064/12/110/