---
title: When he reached manhood, he became a dicer. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: When he reached manhood, he became a dicer. Who acts: Buddha. 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 68

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When he reached manhood, he became a dicer.

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**Who acts:** Buddha · **What happens:** reach, become · **To what, where:** manhood, dicer

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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 (Buddha), 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:pg74064:14:73
# text = When he reached manhood, he became a dicer.
1	When	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	3	mark	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	reached	reach	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	advcl	_	_
4	manhood	manhood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	dicer	dicer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reach** | past | Buddha | manhood |  |  |  |  | vn body\_motion-49.2-1-1 «NP V NP ADV»: agent=Agent manhood=Theme |
| 2 | **become** | past | Buddha | a dicer |  |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=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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