---
title: A son,--both deaf and dumb!-- Split his father’s skull! — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: A son,--both deaf and dumb!-- Split his father’s skull! 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 74

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A son,--both deaf and dumb!-- Split his father’s skull!

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**What happens:** split · **To what, where:** skull

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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: 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:pg74064:13:78
# text = A son,--both deaf and dumb!-- Split his father’s skull!
1	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	both	both	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	advmod	_	_
6	deaf	deaf	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	dumb	dumb	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	--	--	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
11	Split	split	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	6	parataxis	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	13	nmod:poss	_	_
13	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	’s	's	PART	POS	_	13	case	_	_
15	skull	skull	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **split** | infinitive |  | son's father's skull |  |  |  |  | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent skull=Patient |

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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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