---
title: This is what is called a waterless wilderness.” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: This is what is called a waterless wilderness.” Who acts: This. 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 93

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This is what is called a waterless wilderness.”

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**Who acts:** This · **What happens:** be, call · **To what, where:** waterless wilderness · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (This), 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:pg74064:15:93
# text = This is what is called a waterless wilderness.”
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	0	root	_	_
4	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux:pass	_	_
5	called	call	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	3	acl:relcl	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	waterless	waterless	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	wilderness	wilderness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | This |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **call** | present · passive |  | a waterless wilderness |  |  |  |  | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V» |

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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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