---
title: But I must not go back without first of all killing him and eating h… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: But I must not go back without first of all killing him and eating his flesh.” Who acts: I, all. 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/pg74064/10/21/)

<!-- 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/) / 21

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 10, sentence 21

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
But I must not go back without first of all killing him and eating his flesh.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** I, all · **What happens:** not go back, kill, eat · **To what, where:** man, flesh

<!-- .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 (I, all), 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:pg74064:10:21
# text = But I must not go back without first of all killing him and eating his flesh.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	back	back	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
7	without	without	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	first	first	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	7	advmod	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	fixed	_	_
10	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	11	nsubj	_	_
11	killing	kill	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	11	conj	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	flesh	flesh	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **go back** | must | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn convert-26.6.2 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **kill** | gerund | all | man |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **eat** | gerund | all *not said here* | man's flesh |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent flesh=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 20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/20/)
- next →: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/22/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/)