---
title: He broke off a twig and let it fall on the boar’s head. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: He broke off a twig and let it fall on the boar’s head. Who acts: man, twig. 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/pg74064/10/22/)

<!-- 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/) / 22

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 10, sentence 22

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He broke off a twig and let it fall on the boar’s head.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** man, twig · **What happens:** break off, let, fall · **To what, where:** twig, head

<!-- .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 (man, twig), 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:pg74064:10:22
# text = He broke off a twig and let it fall on the boar’s head.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	off	off	ADP	RP	_	2	compound:prt	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	twig	twig	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
7	let	let	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	conj	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	_
9	fall	fall	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	on	on	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	boar	boar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	’s	's	PART	POS	_	12	case	_	_
14	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **break off** | past | man | a twig |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer twig=Patient |
| 2 | **let** | infinitive | man *not said here* | twig |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **fall** | infinitive | twig *not said here* |  |  | the boar's head |  |  | vn occur-48.3 «NP V PP»: agent=Theme on head=Location |

<!-- .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 21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/21/)
- next →: [sentence 23](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/23/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/10/)