The grateful elephant, Opening, part 3, sentence 70
So they said not a word to the elephant about the king’s death, but waited on him just as if nothing had happened.
Who acts: children, nothing, king · What happens: not say, wait, happen, die · To what, where: word, elephant · Speech: someone speaks here
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 (children, nothing, king), 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 | So | so | ADV | _ | 3 said | advmod |
| 2 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 said | nsubj |
| 3 | said | say | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 3 said | advmod |
| 5 | a | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 6 word | det |
| 6 | word | word | NOUN | Number=Sing | 3 said | obj |
| 7 | to | to | ADP | _ | 9 elephant | case |
| 8 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 9 elephant | det |
| 9 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 6 word | nmod |
| 10 | about | about | ADP | _ | 14 death | case |
| 11 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 12 king | det |
| 12 | king | king | NOUN | Number=Sing | 14 death | nmod:poss |
| 13 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 12 king | case |
| 14 | death | death | NOUN | Number=Sing | 9 elephant | nmod |
| 15 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 17 waited | punct |
| 16 | but | but | CCONJ | _ | 17 waited | cc |
| 17 | waited | wait | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 3 said | conj |
| 18 | on | on | ADP | _ | 19 him | case |
| 19 | him | he | PRON | Case=Acc Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 17 waited | obl |
| 20 | just | just | ADV | _ | 21 as | advmod |
| 21 | as | as | ADV | _ | 17 waited | advmod |
| 22 | if | if | SCONJ | _ | 25 happened | mark |
| 23 | nothing | nothing | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Neg | 25 happened | nsubj |
| 24 | had | have | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 25 happened | aux |
| 25 | happened | happen | VERB | Tense=Past VerbForm=Part | 17 waited | advcl |
| 26 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 said | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | not say speech: assert | past | children = child | a word | the elephant about the king's death | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP PP.recipient»: agent=Agent word=Topic to elephant=Recipient | |||
| 2 | wait | past | children = child not said here | on king | vn exist-47.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on he=Location | ||||
| 3 | happen a condition, not said to happen | past · perfect | nothing | vn occur-48.3-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme | |||||
| 4 | die | the king | nom death «event intransitive»: poss=agent |
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/pg74064/3/70/