---
title: At that very instant a Vilva fruit fell on top of the cocoanut leaf. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: At that very instant a Vilva fruit fell on top of the cocoanut leaf. Who acts: Vilva fruit. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 10, sentence 112

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At that very instant a Vilva fruit fell on top of the cocoanut leaf.

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**Who acts:** Vilva fruit · **What happens:** fall · **To what, where:** top

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 10. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Vilva fruit), 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:pg74064:10:116
# text = At that very instant a Vilva fruit fell on top of the cocoanut leaf.
1	At	at	ADP	IN	_	2	case	_	_
2	that	that	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	obl	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	instant	instant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	Vilva	Vilva	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	fell	fall	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
9	on	on	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
10	top	top	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
11	of	of	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	cocoanut	cocoanut	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	leaf	leaf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **fall** | past | a Vilva fruit |  |  | top of the cocoanut leaf |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on top=Location |

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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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