---
title: The man beat the proper side of the drum, and a fourfold army surrou… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: The man beat the proper side of the drum, and a fourfold army surrounded him. Who acts: man. 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 44

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The man beat the proper side of the drum, and a fourfold army surrounded him.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** beat, surround · **To what, where:** proper side, fourfold army

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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 (man), 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:pg74064:10:45
# text = The man beat the proper side of the drum, and a fourfold army surrounded him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	beat	beat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	proper	proper	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	side	side	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	drum	drum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	fourfold	fourfold	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	army	army	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj:pass	_	_
15	surrounded	surround	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	advcl	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beat** | past | the man | the proper side of the drum |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location side=Theme |
| 2 | **surround** | participle · passive |  | a fourfold army |  |  |  | man *obj* | tree rules |

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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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