---
title: Thus did the snakes fail to obtain the drink of immortality. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Thus did the snakes fail to obtain the drink of immortality. Who acts: snakes. 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/pg74064/16/78/)

<!-- 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/) / 78

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 16, sentence 78

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Thus did the snakes fail to obtain the drink of immortality.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** snakes · **What happens:** do, fail, not obtain · **To what, where:** drink

<!-- .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 (snakes), 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:pg74064:16:81
# text = Thus did the snakes fail to obtain the drink of immortality.
1	Thus	thus	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	did	do	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	snakes	snake	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
5	fail	fail	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	obtain	obtain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	xcomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	drink	drink	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	immortality	immortality	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **do** | past |  |  |  |  |  | thus *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **fail** | present | the snakes |  |  |  |  |  | vn succeed-74-3-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **not** **obtain** | to-infinitive | the snakes *not said here* | the drink of immortality |  |  |  |  | vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset drink=Theme |

<!-- .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 77](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/77/)
- next →: [sentence 79](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/79/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/)