---
title: How not to hit an insect 124 _Better an enemy with sense than a frie… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: How not to hit an insect 124 _Better an enemy with sense than a friend without it_ A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 1, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 1, sentence 129

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How not to hit an insect 124 \_Better an enemy with sense than a friend without it\_

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**What happens:** not hit · **To what, where:** insect

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg74064:1:136
# text = How not to hit an insect 124 _Better an enemy with sense than a friend without it_
1	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	4	advmod	_	_
2	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	hit	hit	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	insect	insect	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
7	124	124	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	6	flat	_	_
8	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Better	good	ADJ	JJR	Degree=Cmp	11	amod	_	_
10	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	enemy	enemy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
12	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
13	sense	sense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
14	than	than	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
17	without	without	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	_	_	PUNCT	NFP	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **hit** | to-infinitive |  | a insect |  |  |  | than a friend; without friend; a Better enemy with sense *obl* | vn contiguous\_location-47.8-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme insect=Co-Theme |

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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 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.

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