The grateful elephant, Opening, part 16, sentence 46
Should a wise man desire to obtain wealth or to retain it when it is obtained, by the killing of living beings?
Who acts: wise man desire, killing · What happens: obtain, retain, kill · To what, where: wealth, living beings
This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wise man desire, killing), 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 | Should | should | AUX | VerbForm=Fin | 7 obtain | aux |
| 2 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 5 desire | det |
| 3 | wise | wise | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 desire | amod |
| 4 | man | man | NOUN | Number=Sing | 5 desire | compound |
| 5 | desire | desire | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 obtain | nsubj |
| 6 | to | to | PART | _ | 7 obtain | mark |
| 7 | obtain | obtain | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | root | root |
| 8 | wealth | wealth | NOUN | Number=Sing | 7 obtain | obj |
| 9 | or | or | CCONJ | _ | 11 retain | cc |
| 10 | to | to | PART | _ | 11 retain | mark |
| 11 | retain | retain | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 7 obtain | conj |
| 12 | it | it | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 11 retain | obj |
| 13 | when | when | ADV | PronType=Int | 16 obtained | advmod |
| 14 | it | it | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Neut Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 16 obtained | nsubj:pass |
| 15 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 16 obtained | aux:pass |
| 16 | obtained | obtain | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass | 11 retain | advcl |
| 17 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 20 killing | punct |
| 18 | by | by | ADP | _ | 20 killing | case |
| 19 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 20 killing | det |
| 20 | killing | killing | NOUN | Number=Sing | 16 obtained | obl |
| 21 | of | of | ADP | _ | 23 beings | case |
| 22 | living | living | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 23 beings | amod |
| 23 | beings | being | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 killing | nmod |
| 24 | ? | ? | PUNCT | _ | 7 obtain | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | obtain | should | a wise man desire | wealth | vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset wealth=Theme | ||||
| 2 | retain | to-infinitive | a wise man desire not said here | wealth | tree rules | ||||
| 3 | obtain | present · passive | the killing of living beings | wealth | vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset subject=Theme | ||||
| 4 | kill | living beings | nom killing «event transitive»: of=patient |
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/pg74064/16/46/