---
title: And as he roamed about, he heard afar off a piteous sound of weeping. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: And as he roamed about, he heard afar off a piteous sound of weeping. Who acts: vāhana. 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/pg74064/16/95/)

<!-- 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/) / 95

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 16, sentence 95

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And as he roamed about, he heard afar off a piteous sound of weeping.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** vāhana · **What happens:** roam, hear · **To what, where:** afar

<!-- .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), 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:pg74064:16:99
# text = And as he roamed about, he heard afar off a piteous sound of weeping.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
2	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	4	mark	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	roamed	roam	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
5	about	about	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	afar	afar	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
10	off	off	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	piteous	piteous	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	weeping	weeping	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **roam** | past | vāhana |  |  |  |  | about *property* | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **hear** | past | vāhana | afar |  |  |  | off a piteous sound of weeping | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer afar=Stimulus |

<!-- .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 94](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/94/)
- next →: [sentence 96](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/96/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/16/)