---
title: Then the gardener told them: “The story goes that a certain gardener… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Then the gardener told them: “The story goes that a certain gardener’s son once watered the saplings. Who acts: gardener, story, son. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/14/12/)

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 14, sentence 12

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Then the gardener told them: “The story goes that a certain gardener’s son once watered the saplings.

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**Who acts:** gardener, story, son · **What happens:** tell, go, water · **To what, where:** Monks, saplings · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (gardener, story, son), 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:pg74064:14:13
# text = Then the gardener told them: “The story goes that a certain gardener’s son once watered the saplings.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	4	advmod	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	gardener	gardener	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	told	tell	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	10	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	story	story	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	goes	go	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
11	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	18	mark	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	gardener	gardener	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	’s	's	PART	POS	_	14	case	_	_
16	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nsubj	_	_
17	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	18	advmod	_	_
18	watered	water	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	advcl	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	saplings	sapling	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past | the gardener |  | Monks *= monk* |  | then |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent they=Recipient |
| 2 | **go** *in a quote* | present | the story |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **water** *in a quote* | past | a certain gardener's son | the saplings |  |  |  | once *property* | vn butter-9.9 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent sapling=Destination |

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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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