---
title: So the lion asked the little hare: “Friend, is it true, as you say,… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: So the lion asked the little hare: “Friend, is it true, as you say, that the earth is collapsing?” Who acts: lion, Friend, little hare, earth. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 10, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/151/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The grateful elephant](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/) / [Opening, part 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/) / 151

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 10, sentence 151

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So the lion asked the little hare: “Friend, is it true, as you say, that the earth is collapsing?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** lion, Friend, little hare, earth · **What happens:** ask, be, say, collapse · **To what, where:** little hare · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (lion, Friend, little hare, earth), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg74064:10:155
# text = So the lion asked the little hare: “Friend, is it true, as you say, that the earth is collapsing?”
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	lion	lion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	hare	hare	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
9	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	Friend	friend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	true	true	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	18	punct	_	_
16	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
17	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	18	nsubj	_	_
18	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	24	punct	_	_
20	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	24	mark	_	_
21	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
22	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	24	nsubj	_	_
23	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	24	aux	_	_
24	collapsing	collapse	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	24	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the lion |  | the little hare |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP that S»: agent=Agent hare=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present | Friend |  |  |  |  | true *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | present | the little hare *= hare* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **collapse** *in a quote* | present · progressive | the earth |  |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP.patient V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 150](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/150/)
- next →: [sentence 152](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/152/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/)