---
title: They led him there and took counsel together, saying: “What can the… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: They led him there and took counsel together, saying: “What can the king do to us! Who acts: directions, king. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 3, 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/pg74064/3/123/)

<!-- 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 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/3/) / 123

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 3, sentence 123

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They led him there and took counsel together, saying: “What can the king do to us!

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** directions, king · **What happens:** lead, take, say, do · **To what, where:** cloud, counsel, us · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (directions, king), 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:pg74064:3:128
# text = They led him there and took counsel together, saying: “What can the king do to us!
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	led	lead	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	there	there	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	advmod	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
7	counsel	counsel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	together	together	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
10	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
12	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	17	obj	_	_
14	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	17	aux	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nsubj	_	_
17	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	ccomp	_	_
18	to	to	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lead** | past | directions *= direction* | cloud |  | there |  |  | vn accompany-51.7 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 2 | **take** | past | directions *= direction* *not said here* | counsel |  |  |  | together *property* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent counsel=Theme |
| 3 | **say** *speech: express* | gerund | directions *= direction* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **do** *in a quote* | can | the king |  | us |  |  | What *obj* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=Eventuality |

<!-- .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 122](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/3/122/)
- next →: [sentence 124](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/3/124/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/3/)