---
title: Is not this body of ours like a bubble in the water, which bursts in… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Is not this body of ours like a bubble in the water, which bursts in an instant and vanishes? Who acts: bubble. 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 44

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Is not this body of ours like a bubble in the water, which bursts in an instant and vanishes?

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**Who acts:** bubble · **What happens:** not be, burst, vanish · **To what, where:** body, instant

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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 (bubble), 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:pg74064:16:46
# text = Is not this body of ours like a bubble in the water, which bursts in an instant and vanishes?
1	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
2	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
3	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	4	det	_	_
4	body	body	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	csubj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	ours	our	PRON	PRP	Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	0	root	_	_
7	like	like	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	bubble	bubble	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nmod	_	_
10	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
14	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
15	bursts	burst	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	parataxis	_	_
16	in	in	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	instant	instant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
19	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	20	cc	_	_
20	vanishes	vanish	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is a** | present |  | this body |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **burst** | present | a bubble in the water |  |  | a instant |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in instant=Location |
| 3 | **vanish** | present | a bubble in the water *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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