---
title: But men who laid hold of Truth absolute, certain, consistent, obtain… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: But men who laid hold of Truth absolute, certain, consistent, obtained safety in that very wilderness.” Who acts: men. 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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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 14, sentence 156

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But men who laid hold of Truth absolute, certain, consistent, obtained safety in that very wilderness.”

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** lay, obtain, hold · **To what, where:** hold, absolute obtained safety, Truth

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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 (men), 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:pg74064:14:165
# text = But men who laid hold of Truth absolute, certain, consistent, obtained safety in that very wilderness.”
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
3	who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	4	nsubj	_	_
4	laid	lay	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
5	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	Truth	Truth	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nmod	_	_
8	absolute	absolute	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
12	consistent	consistent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
14	obtained	obtain	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	15	amod	_	_
15	safety	safety	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
17	that	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	det	_	_
18	very	very	ADV	RB	_	19	advmod	_	_
19	wilderness	wilderness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | past | men | hold of Truth |  |  |  | who *nsubj* | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Result |
| 2 | **obtain** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |
| 4 | **hold** |  |  | Truth |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: of=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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