---
title: Water is at all times hard to get; it must not be wasted. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Water is at all times hard to get; it must not be wasted. Who acts: Water. 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 27

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Water is at all times hard to get; it must not be wasted.

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**Who acts:** Water · **What happens:** be, get, not waste · **To what, where:** water

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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 (Water), 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:pg74064:14:28
# text = Water is at all times hard to get; it must not be wasted.
1	Water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	at	at	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	5	det	_	_
5	times	time	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl:unmarked	_	_
6	hard	hard	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	;	;	PUNCT	:	_	14	punct	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj:pass	_	_
11	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	14	advmod	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	aux:pass	_	_
14	wasted	waste	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Water |  |  |  | time | hard *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **get** | to-infinitive | Water *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **not** **waste** | must · passive |  | water |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: subject=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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