---
title: There was neither water for the oxen nor gruel and boiled rice for t… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: There was neither water for the oxen nor gruel and boiled rice for the men. Who acts: water. 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 66

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There was neither water for the oxen nor gruel and boiled rice for the men.

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**Who acts:** water · **What happens:** be, boil

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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 (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:pg74064:15:66
# text = There was neither water for the oxen nor gruel and boiled rice for the men.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	neither	neither	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	4	det	_	_
4	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
5	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	oxen	ox	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	_
8	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	9	cc	_	_
9	gruel	gruel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	boiled	boil	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	12	amod	_	_
12	rice	rice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
13	for	for	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | neither water |  |  | there |  | for the oxen nor gruel and boiled rice for the men | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **boil** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn cooking-45.3 «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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