The grateful elephant, Opening, part 8, sentence 87

We are told that whenever they captured two persons, they would _despatch_ one of them to fetch ransom-money; therefore they were appropriately called _Despatcher-thieves_.

Who acts: Thieves · What happens: tell, capture, fetch, call · To what, where: We, two persons, ransom money, Thieves · Speech: someone speaks here

This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Thieves), 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	We	we	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=1 PronType=Prs	3 told	nsubj
2	are	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=1 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin	3 told	aux:pass
3	told	tell	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	root	root
4	that	that	SCONJ	_	7 captured	mark
5	whenever	whenever	ADV	PronType=Rel	7 captured	advmod
6	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	7 captured	nsubj
7	captured	capture	VERB	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	3 told	ccomp
8	two	two	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	9 persons	nummod
9	persons	person	NOUN	Number=Plur	7 captured	obj
10	,	,	PUNCT	_	3 told	punct
11	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	12 would	nsubj
12	would	would	AUX	VerbForm=Fin	3 told	ccomp
13	_	_	PUNCT	_	14 despatch	punct
14	despatch	despatch	NOUN	Number=Sing	12 would	dep
15	_	_	PUNCT	_	16 one	punct
16	one	one	NUM	NumForm=Word NumType=Card	12 would	conj
17	of	of	ADP	_	18 them	case
18	them	they	PRON	Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	16 one	nmod
19	to	to	PART	_	20 fetch	mark
20	fetch	fetch	VERB	VerbForm=Inf	16 one	advcl
21	ransom	ransom	NOUN	Number=Sing	23 money	compound
22	-	-	PUNCT	_	21 ransom	punct
23	money	money	NOUN	Number=Sing	20 fetch	obj
24	;	;	PUNCT	_	29 called	punct
25	therefore	therefore	ADV	_	29 called	advmod
26	they	they	PRON	Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs	29 called	nsubj:pass
27	were	be	AUX	Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin	29 called	aux:pass
28	appropriately	appropriately	ADV	_	29 called	advmod
29	called	call	VERB	Tense=Past VerbForm=Part Voice=Pass	3 told	parataxis
30	_	_	PUNCT	_	33 thieves	punct
31	Despatcher	Despatcher	PROPN	Number=Sing	33 thieves	compound
32	-	-	PUNCT	_	31 Despatcher	punct
33	thieves	thief	NOUN	Number=Plur	29 called	obl
34	_	_	PUNCT	_	29 called	punct
35	.	.	PUNCT	_	3 told	punct

Pragmatics

#	verb	tense, mood	who	what, whom	other	roles by
1	tell speech: assert	present · passive		We		vn transfer_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic
2	capture	past	Thieves = thief	two persons	whenever property	vn steal-10.5-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent person=Theme
3	fetch	to-infinitive		ransom money		vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent money=Theme
4	call	past · passive		Thieves = thief	Despatcher thieves obl; appropriately, therefore property	vn initiate_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: subject=Recipient

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/pg74064/8/87/

🌲 The grateful elephant, Opening, part 8, sentence 87

The tree

Pragmatics

The grateful elephant, Opening, part 8, sentence 87