The grateful elephant, Opening, part 9, sentence 134
And they fought among themselves with their fists, saying: “This is what an elephant is like, that is not what an elephant is like;” “This is not what an elephant is like, that is what an elephant is like.”
Who acts: Men, This, that · What happens: fight, say, be, not be · 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 (Men, This, that), 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 | And | and | CCONJ | _ | 3 fought | cc |
| 2 | they | they | PRON | Case=Nom Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs | 3 fought | nsubj |
| 3 | fought | fight | VERB | Mood=Ind Number=Plur Person=3 Tense=Past VerbForm=Fin | root | root |
| 4 | among | among | ADP | _ | 5 themselves | case |
| 5 | themselves | themselves | PRON | Case=Acc Number=Plur Person=3 PronType=Prs Reflex=Yes | 3 fought | obl |
| 6 | with | with | ADP | _ | 8 fists | case |
| 7 | their | their | PRON | Case=Gen Number=Plur Person=3 Poss=Yes PronType=Prs | 8 fists | nmod:poss |
| 8 | fists | fist | NOUN | Number=Plur | 3 fought | obl |
| 9 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 10 saying | punct |
| 10 | saying | say | VERB | Tense=Pres VerbForm=Part | 3 fought | advcl |
| 11 | : | : | PUNCT | _ | 3 fought | punct |
| 12 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 15 what | punct |
| 13 | This | this | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 15 what | nsubj |
| 14 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 15 what | cop |
| 15 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 3 fought | parataxis |
| 16 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 17 elephant | det |
| 17 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 15 what | nsubj |
| 18 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 19 like | cop |
| 19 | like | like | INTJ | _ | 15 what | discourse |
| 20 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 24 what | punct |
| 21 | that | that | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 24 what | nsubj |
| 22 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 24 what | cop |
| 23 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 24 what | advmod |
| 24 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 3 fought | parataxis |
| 25 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 26 elephant | det |
| 26 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 28 like | nsubj |
| 27 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 28 like | cop |
| 28 | like | like | ADP | _ | 24 what | acl:relcl |
| 29 | ; | ; | PUNCT | _ | 3 fought | punct |
| 30 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 fought | punct |
| 31 | “ | " | PUNCT | _ | 35 what | punct |
| 32 | This | this | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 35 what | nsubj |
| 33 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 35 what | cop |
| 34 | not | not | PART | Polarity=Neg | 35 what | advmod |
| 35 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 3 fought | parataxis |
| 36 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 37 elephant | det |
| 37 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 35 what | nsubj |
| 38 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 39 like | cop |
| 39 | like | like | INTJ | _ | 37 elephant | discourse |
| 40 | , | , | PUNCT | _ | 43 what | punct |
| 41 | that | that | PRON | Number=Sing PronType=Dem | 43 what | nsubj |
| 42 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 43 what | cop |
| 43 | what | what | PRON | PronType=Int | 3 fought | parataxis |
| 44 | an | a | DET | Definite=Ind PronType=Art | 45 elephant | det |
| 45 | elephant | elephant | NOUN | Number=Sing | 43 what | nsubj |
| 46 | is | be | AUX | Mood=Ind Number=Sing Person=3 Tense=Pres VerbForm=Fin | 47 like | cop |
| 47 | like | like | INTJ | _ | 43 what | discourse |
| 48 | . | . | PUNCT | _ | 3 fought | punct |
| 49 | ” | " | PUNCT | _ | 3 fought | punct |
Pragmatics
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | fight | past | Men = man | among Men = man; with Men's fists | tree rules | ||||
| 2 | say speech: assert | gerund | Men = man not said here | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent | |||||
| 3 | is a in a quote | present | This | a elephant nsubj | tree rules | ||||
| 4 | not is a in a quote | present | that | tree rules | |||||
| 5 | not is a in a quote | present | This | a elephant nsubj | tree rules | ||||
| 6 | is a in a quote | present | that | a elephant nsubj | 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/pg74064/9/134/