---
title: But harm’s the only thing they do!” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: But harm’s the only thing they do!” Who acts: harm, fools. 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 149

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But harm’s the only thing they do!”

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**Who acts:** harm, fools · **What happens:** be, do · **To what, where:** only thing

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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 (harm, fools), 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:pg74064:13:158
# text = But harm’s the only thing they do!”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	harm	harm	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	only	only	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	thing	thing	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | harm | the only thing |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **do** | present | fools *= fool* | the only thing *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent thing=Eventuality |

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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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