---
title: Gotama Buddha was born nearly twenty-five centuries ago in the city… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Gotama Buddha was born nearly twenty-five centuries ago in the city of Kapila, in Northeast India. 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 178

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Gotama Buddha was born nearly twenty-five centuries ago in the city of Kapila, in Northeast India.

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**What happens:** bear · **To what, where:** Gotama, city

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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:pg74064:1:192
# text = Gotama Buddha was born nearly twenty-five centuries ago in the city of Kapila, in Northeast India.
1	Gotama	Gotama	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	Buddha	Buddha	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	1	flat	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux:pass	_	_
4	born	bear	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
5	nearly	nearly	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
6	twenty	twenty	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	8	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	five	five	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
9	centuries	century	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl:unmarked	_	_
10	ago	ago	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	Kapila	Kapila	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	Northeast	Northeast	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	compound	_	_
19	India	India	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bear** | past · passive |  | Gotama |  | the city of Kapila |  | in Northeast India; ago *property* | vn birth-28.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |

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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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