---
title: The king asked his foresters: “What is that the fruit of?” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: The king asked his foresters: “What is that the fruit of?” Who acts: king. 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 57

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The king asked his foresters: “What is that the fruit of?”

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**Who acts:** king · **What happens:** ask, be · **To what, where:** foresters · **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 (king), 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:pg74064:10:59
# text = The king asked his foresters: “What is that the fruit of?”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	foresters	forester	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	12	nsubj	_	_
9	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
10	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	12	mark	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	fruit	fruit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	12	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | the king | king's foresters |  |  |  |  | vn urge-58.1-1-1 «NP V NP that S»: agent=Agent forester=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  | of the fruit; What *nsubj* | 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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