---
title: “This I must get,” thought he. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: “This I must get,” thought he. Who acts: This. 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 30

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“This I must get,” thought he.

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**Who acts:** This · **What happens:** get, think · **To what, where:** man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (This), 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:pg74064:10:30
# text = “This I must get,” thought he.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	nsubj	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
8	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **get** *in a quote* | must | This |  |  |  |  | I *nsubj* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past |  | man |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent he=Attribute clause=Theme |

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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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