The grateful elephant, Opening, part 9, sentence 117
Some of the blind men he let feel of the elephant’s tusks, saying: “This, O blind men, is what an elephant is like.”
Who acts: Elephant, blind men, Some · What happens: let, feel, say, be · To what, where: blind men, This · Speech: someone speaks here
This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Elephant, blind men, Some), 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 | Some | some | DET | PronType=Ind | 15 saying | nsubj |
| 2 | of | of | ADP | _ | 5 men | case |
| 3 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 5 men | det |
| 4 | blind | blind | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 5 men | amod |
| 5 | men | man | NOUN | Number=Plur | 1 Some | nmod |
| 6 | he | he | PRON | Case=Nom Gender=Masc Number=Sing Person=3 PronType=Prs | 7 let | nsubj |
| 7 | let | let | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | 5 men | acl:relcl |
| 8 | feel | feel | VERB | VerbForm=Inf | 7 let | xcomp |
| 9 | of | of | ADP | _ | 13 tusks | case |
| 10 | the | the | DET | Definite=Def PronType=Art | 11 elephant | det |
| 11 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 13 tusks | nmod:poss |
| 12 | ’s | 's | PART | _ | 11 elephant | case |
| 13 | tusks | tusk | NOUN | Number=Plur | 8 feel | obl |
| 14 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 15 saying | punct |
| 15 | saying | say | VERB | VerbForm=Ger | root | root |
| 16 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 18 This | punct |
| 17 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 18 This | punct |
| 18 | This | this | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 15 saying | obj |
| 19 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 22 men | punct |
| 20 | O | o | INTJ | _ | 22 men | discourse |
| 21 | blind | blind | ADJ | Degree=Pos | 22 men | amod |
| 22 | men | man | NOUN | Number=Plur | 15 saying | obl |
| 23 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 25 what | punct |
| 24 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 25 what | cop |
| 25 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Rel | 15 saying | obl |
| 26 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 27 elephant | det |
| 27 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 is | nsubj |
| 28 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 25 what | cop |
| 29 | like | like | INTJ | _ | 28 is | discourse |
| 30 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 15 saying | punct |
| 31 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 15 saying | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | let | past | Elephant | the blind men not said here | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | feel | infinitive | the blind men not said here | of the elephant's tusks | vn stimulus_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus | ||||
| 3 | say speech: assert | gerund | Some of the blind men | This | blind men obl | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V NP.topic»: agent=Agent this=Topic | |||
| 4 | is a in a quote | present | tree rules |
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/pg74064/9/117/