---
title: “Reverend Sirs, when this garden was planted, a certain village boy… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: “Reverend Sirs, when this garden was planted, a certain village boy watered it. Who acts: certain village boy. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 13, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 13, sentence 119

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“Reverend Sirs, when this garden was planted, a certain village boy watered it.

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**Who acts:** certain village boy · **What happens:** plant, water · **To what, where:** garden

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 13. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (certain village boy), 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:pg74064:13:127
# text = “Reverend Sirs, when this garden was planted, a certain village boy watered it.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Reverend	reverend	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	compound	_	_
3	Sirs	sir	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
5	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	9	mark	_	_
6	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	garden	garden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	planted	plant	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
12	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
13	village	village	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
15	watered	water	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
16	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **plant** *in a quote* | past · passive |  | this garden |  |  |  | Reverend Sirs *obl* | vn establish-55.5-1 «NP V NP»: subject=Patient |
| 2 | **water** *in a quote* | past | a certain village boy | garden |  |  |  |  | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent it=Destination |

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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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