---
title: First he saw the entire course of his past lives. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: First he saw the entire course of his past lives. Who acts: Gotama. 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 217

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First he saw the entire course of his past lives.

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**Who acts:** Gotama · **What happens:** see · **To what, where:** entire course

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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: who acts (Gotama), 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:pg74064:1:233
# text = First he saw the entire course of his past lives.
1	First	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	advmod	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	entire	entire	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	course	course	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	past	past	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	lives	life	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | Gotama | the entire course of Gotama's past lives |  |  |  | first *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer course=Stimulus |

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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 216](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/1/216/)
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- ↑ back to [Opening, part 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/1/)