---
title: It must certainly be that they failed to understand something they h… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: It must certainly be that they failed to understand something they heard. Who acts: It, earth. 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 131

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It must certainly be that they failed to understand something they heard.

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**Who acts:** It, earth · **What happens:** be, not understand, hear · **To what, where:** something

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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 (It, earth), 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:pg74064:10:135
# text = It must certainly be that they failed to understand something they heard.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
2	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
3	certainly	certainly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
5	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	7	mark	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	failed	fail	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	something	something	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	9	obj	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | must | It |  |  |  |  | earth *nsubj*; certainly, fail *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **understand** | to-infinitive |  | something |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer something=Stimulus |
| 3 | **hear** | past | earth |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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