---
title: He taught men not to injure or kill any living creature, whether a h… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: He taught men not to injure or kill any living creature, whether a human being or an animal, even in self-defense. Who acts: Buddha. 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 236

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He taught men not to injure or kill any living creature, whether a human being or an animal, even in self-defense.

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**Who acts:** Buddha · **What happens:** teach, not injure, kill, be · **To what, where:** men, self defense, living creature, human animal

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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 (Buddha), 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:pg74064:1:253
# text = He taught men not to injure or kill any living creature, whether a human being or an animal, even in self-defense.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	taught	teach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	6	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	injure	injure	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
9	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	11	det	_	_
10	living	living	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	creature	creature	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
13	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	19	mark	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
15	human	human	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	19	amod	_	_
16	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	19	cop	_	_
17	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	19	cc	_	_
18	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	animal	animal	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
21	even	even	ADV	RB	_	25	advmod	_	_
22	in	in	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	self	self	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	25	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	23	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	defense	defense	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **teach** *speech: other* | past | Buddha |  | men |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent man=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **injure** | to-infinitive | Buddha *not said here* |  |  | self defense |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **kill** | infinitive | Buddha *not said here* | any living creature |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent creature=Theme |
| 4 | **is a** | gerund | Buddha *not said here* | a human animal |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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