---
title: Then came the griffin, hiding the heavens with his outspread wings. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Then came the griffin, hiding the heavens with his outspread wings. Who acts: griffin. 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 8

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Then came the griffin, hiding the heavens with his outspread wings.

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**Who acts:** griffin · **What happens:** come, hide · **To what, where:** heavens

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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 (griffin), 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:pg74064:17:8
# text = Then came the griffin, hiding the heavens with his outspread wings.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
2	came	come	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	griffin	griffin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
6	hiding	hide	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	2	advcl	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	heavens	heaven	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
9	with	with	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
11	outspread	outspread	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the griffin |  |  |  | then |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **hide** | gerund | the griffin *not said here* | the heavens |  |  |  | with griffin's outspread wings | vn concealment-16-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent heaven=Patient |

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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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