---
title: He had the carts unharnessed and a stockade built by drawing them in… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: He had the carts unharnessed and a stockade built by drawing them into a contracted circle. Who acts: particle, carts. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 15, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 15, sentence 119

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He had the carts unharnessed and a stockade built by drawing them into a contracted circle.

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**Who acts:** particle, carts · **What happens:** have, unharness, build, draw, contract · **To what, where:** stockade, carts, contracted circle

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 15. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (particle, carts), 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:pg74064:15:119
# text = He had the carts unharnessed and a stockade built by drawing them into a contracted circle.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	carts	cart	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	unharnessed	unharness	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
6	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	stockade	stockade	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	built	build	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	_
10	by	by	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
11	drawing	draw	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
12	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	into	into	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	contracted	contract	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	16	amod	_	_
16	circle	circle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past | particle |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **unharness** | past | the carts | a stockade |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **build** | participle |  | a stockade *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 4 | **draw** | gerund |  | carts *= cart* |  |  |  | into a contracted circle *result* | vn lure-59.3 «NP V NP S\_ING»: agent=Agent they=Patient into circle=Result |
| 5 | **contract** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP.patient V»: 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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