---
title: Gotama ignored the question whether such a being exists. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Gotama ignored the question whether such a being exists. Who acts: Gotama. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 17, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 17, sentence 31

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Gotama ignored the question whether such a being exists.

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**Who acts:** Gotama · **What happens:** ignore, exist · **To what, where:** question

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 17. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Gotama), 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:pg74064:17:32
# text = Gotama ignored the question whether such a being exists.
1	Gotama	Gotama	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	ignored	ignore	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	question	question	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
6	such	such	DET	PDT	PronType=Ind	9	det:predet	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	being	be	AUX	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	nsubj	_	_
9	exists	exist	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ignore** | past | Gotama | the question |  |  |  |  | vn neglect-75.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent question=Theme |
| 2 | **exist** | present |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «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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