---
title: Then said the youth her son: “Mother, be not afraid, for this is no… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Then said the youth her son: “Mother, be not afraid, for this is no griffin!” Who acts: son, Mother, this. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 16, sentence 116

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Then said the youth her son: “Mother, be not afraid, for this is no griffin!”

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**Who acts:** son, Mother, this · **What happens:** say, not be, be · **To what, where:** youth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 16. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (son, Mother, 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:pg74064:16:120
# text = Then said the youth her son: “Mother, be not afraid, for this is no griffin!”
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
2	said	say	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	youth	youth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	son	son	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	13	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	cop	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
16	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	19	nsubj	_	_
17	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	19	cop	_	_
18	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	19	det	_	_
19	griffin	griffin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: express* | past | youth's son | the youth |  |  | then |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | infinitive | Mother |  |  |  |  | afraid *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | this |  |  |  |  | for no griffin | tree rules |

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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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