---
title: Thus, by reason of a single foolish caravan-leader, they all met des… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Thus, by reason of a single foolish caravan-leader, they all met destruction. Who acts: men. 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 69

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Thus, by reason of a single foolish caravan-leader, they all met destruction.

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** meet · **To what, where:** destruction

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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 (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:pg74064:15:69
# text = Thus, by reason of a single foolish caravan-leader, they all met destruction.
1	Thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	by	by	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
4	reason	reason	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
7	single	single	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
8	foolish	foolish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
9	caravan	caravan	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	leader	leader	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
13	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	13	det	_	_
15	met	meet	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
16	destruction	destruction	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	15	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **meet** | past | men *= man* | destruction |  |  |  | by reason of a single foolish caravan leader; thus *property* | vn meet-36.3-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent destruction=Co-Agent |

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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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