---
title: They went to the forest with the thought in their minds, “We’ll pier… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: They went to the forest with the thought in their minds, “We’ll pierce the mosquitoes.” Who acts: fools, We. 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 48

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They went to the forest with the thought in their minds, “We’ll pierce the mosquitoes.”

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**Who acts:** fools, We · **What happens:** go, pierce, mind · **To what, where:** minds, mosquitoes · **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 (fools, We), 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:pg74064:13:52
# text = They went to the forest with the thought in their minds, “We’ll pierce the mosquitoes.”
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	went	go	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
6	with	with	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	thought	thought	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	minds	mind	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	We	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’ll	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	pierce	pierce	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	mosquitoes	mosquito	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	16	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	16	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **go** | past | fools *= fool* |  |  | fools's minds |  | to the forest; with the thought | vn say-37.7 «NP V S-Quote»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **pierce** *in a quote* | future | We | the mosquitoes |  |  |  |  | vn poke-19-1 «NP V NP PP.patient»: agent=Agent mosquito=Instrument |
| 3 | **mind** |  | fools *= fool* |  |  |  |  |  | nom mind «cognition transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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