---
title: And he said to his companion: “Whose bones are these?” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: And he said to his companion: “Whose bones are these?” Who acts: vāhana, bones. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 16, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/55/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The grateful elephant](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/) / [Opening, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/) / 55

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 16, sentence 55

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And he said to his companion: “Whose bones are these?”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** vāhana, bones · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** companion, these · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (vāhana, bones), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg74064:16:57
# text = And he said to his companion: “Whose bones are these?”
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	companion	companion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	Whose	whose	PRON	WP$	Poss=Yes|PronType=Rel	10	nmod:poss	_	_
10	bones	bone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj	_	_
11	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	these	this	PRON	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	3	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | vāhana |  | vāhana's companion |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to companion=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present | bones | these |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 54](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/54/)
- next →: [sentence 56](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/56/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/)