---
title: The boatman with the elephant’s head brought the boat and ferried th… — The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient · tree and pragmatics
description: The boatman with the elephant’s head brought the boat and ferried them over the lake as he had done before. Who acts: boatman. A sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg65965/17/136/)

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# The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient, Opening, part 17, sentence 136

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The boatman with the elephant’s head brought the boat and ferried them over the lake as he had done before.

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**Who acts:** boatman · **What happens:** bring, ferry, do · **To what, where:** boat, head, lake

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This is a sentence of «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Opening, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boatman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg65965:17:136
# text = The boatman with the elephant’s head brought the boat and ferried them over the lake as he had done before.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	boatman	boatman	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	with	with	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	elephant	elephant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	’s	's	PART	POS	_	5	case	_	_
7	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	_
8	brought	bring	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	boat	boat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	ferried	ferry	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	_
13	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	over	over	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	lake	lake	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	_
17	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
18	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
19	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	20	aux	_	_
20	done	do	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	12	advcl	_	_
21	before	before	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bring** | past | the boatman with the elephant's head | the boat |  |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP together»: agent=Agent boat=Theme |
| 2 | **ferry** | past | the boatman with the elephant's head *not said here* | head |  | the lake |  |  | vn vehicle-51.4.1 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent they=Theme over lake=Trajectory |
| 3 | **do** | past · perfect | boatman |  |  |  |  | before *property* | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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.

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**Text:** «The Jade Story Book; Stories from the Orient» by Penrhyn Wingfield Coussens, Project Gutenberg book 65965 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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