---
title: Where she was pounding rice, her old mother came in and lay down. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Where she was pounding rice, her old mother came in and lay down. Who acts: merchant, old mother. 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 84

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Where she was pounding rice, her old mother came in and lay down.

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**Who acts:** merchant, old mother · **What happens:** pound, come in, lay down · **To what, where:** rice

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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 (merchant, old mother), 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:pg74064:13:89
# text = Where she was pounding rice, her old mother came in and lay down.
1	Where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	4	advmod	_	_
2	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
4	pounding	pound	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	rice	rice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
8	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
11	in	in	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
13	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	_
14	down	down	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pound** | past · progressive | merchant | rice |  |  |  |  | vn build-26.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rice=Product |
| 2 | **come in** | past | merchant's old mother |  |  |  |  |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **lay down** | infinitive | merchant's old mother *not said here* |  |  |  |  | down *property* | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=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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