---
title: Nothing more terrible than this can be imagined. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Nothing more terrible than this can be imagined. 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 208

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Nothing more terrible than this can be imagined.

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**What happens:** imagine · **To what, where:** Nothing

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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:pg74064:1:223
# text = Nothing more terrible than this can be imagined.
1	Nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	8	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	more	more	ADV	RBR	Degree=Cmp	3	advmod	_	_
3	terrible	terrible	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	1	amod	_	_
4	than	than	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	obl	_	_
6	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	aux:pass	_	_
8	imagined	imagine	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **imagine** | can · passive |  | Nothing |  |  |  |  | vn wish-62 «NP V NP»: subject=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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- ← previous: [sentence 207](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/1/207/)
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