---
title: And he asked him the question: “Can you water the young trees in thi… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: And he asked him the question: “Can you water the young trees in this garden until I come back?” Who acts: holiday, Story. 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 135

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And he asked him the question: “Can you water the young trees in this garden until I come back?”

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**Who acts:** holiday, Story · **What happens:** ask, water, come back · **To what, where:** question, Story, young trees · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (holiday, Story), 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:pg74064:13:143
# text = And he asked him the question: “Can you water the young trees in this garden until I come back?”
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	iobj	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	11	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	appos	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	trees	tree	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
15	in	in	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	17	det	_	_
17	garden	garden	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	_
18	until	until	SCONJ	IN	_	20	mark	_	_
19	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	20	nsubj	_	_
20	come	come	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
21	back	back	ADV	RB	_	20	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	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 | holiday | the question | Story |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **water** *in a quote* | can | Story | the young trees in this garden |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **come back** *in a quote* | present | holiday |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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