The grateful elephant, Opening, part 3, sentence 42
You gave me my life; I give you this elephant by way of paying the fee which I owe to my physicians.
Who acts: You, I, way · What happens: give, pay, owe · To what, where: life, me, elephant, you, fee, physicians
This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, I, way), 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 | You | you | PRON | Case=Nom Person=2 PronType=Prs | 2 gave | nsubj |
| 2 | gave | give | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=2 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 3 | me | I | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 2 gave | iobj |
| 4 | my | my | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 5 life | nmod:poss |
| 5 | life | life | NOUN | Number=Sing | 2 gave | obj |
| 6 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 8 give | punct |
| 7 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 8 give | nsubj |
| 8 | give | give | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 2 gave | conj |
| 9 | you | you | PRON | Case=Acc Person=2 PronType=Prs | 8 give | iobj |
| 10 | this | this | DET | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 11 elephant | det |
| 11 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 give | obj |
| 12 | by | by | ADP | _ | 13 way | case |
| 13 | way | way | NOUN | Number=Sing | 8 give | obl |
| 14 | of | of | SCONJ | _ | 15 paying | mark |
| 15 | paying | pay | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | 13 way | acl |
| 16 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 17 fee | det |
| 17 | fee | fee | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 paying | obj |
| 18 | which | which | PRON | PronType=Rel | 20 owe | obj |
| 19 | I | I | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Sing Person=1 PronType=Prs | 20 owe | nsubj |
| 20 | owe | owe | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 17 fee | acl:relcl |
| 21 | to | to | ADP | _ | 23 physicians | case |
| 22 | my | my | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Sing Person=1 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 23 physicians | nmod:poss |
| 23 | physicians | physician | NOUN | Number=Plur | 20 owe | obl |
| 24 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 2 gave | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | give | past | You | my life | me | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient life=Theme | |||
| 2 | give | present | I | this elephant | you | by way | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent you=Recipient elephant=Theme | ||
| 3 | pay | gerund | way not said here | the fee | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent fee=Asset | ||||
| 4 | owe | present | I | the fee | to my physicians goal | vn future_having-13.3 «NP V NP PP.goal»: agent=Agent which=Theme to physician=Goal |
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/pg74064/3/42/