---
title: _True is this saying of some men of the world. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: _True is this saying of some men of the world. Who acts: _ True. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 3, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 3, sentence 108

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\_True is this saying of some men of the world.

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**Who acts:** \_ True · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** saying

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 3. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (\_ True), 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:pg74064:3:112
# text = _True is this saying of some men of the world.
1	_	_	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	True	True	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	5	det	_	_
5	saying	saying	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	8	det	_	_
8	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	world	world	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | present | \_ True | this saying |  |  |  | of some men of the world | 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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- ↑ back to [Opening, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/3/)