---
title: (4) Thou shalt not speak falsehood. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: (4) Thou shalt not speak falsehood. Who acts: 4. 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 55

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(4) Thou shalt not speak falsehood.

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**Who acts:** 4 · **What happens:** not speak · **To what, where:** falsehood · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (4), 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:pg74064:17:56
# text = (4) Thou shalt not speak falsehood.
1	(	(	PUNCT	-LRB-	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	4	4	NUM	CD	NumForm=Digit|NumType=Card	7	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	)	)	PUNCT	-RRB-	_	2	punct	_	_
4	Thou	thou	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=2|PronType=Prs|Style=Arch	7	nsubj	_	_
5	shalt	shall	AUX	MD	Style=Arch|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
8	falsehood	falsehood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **speak** *speech: other* | shall | 4 | falsehood |  |  |  | Thou *nsubj* | tree rules |

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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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