---
title: So saying, he related the following Story of the Past: — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: So saying, he related the following Story of the Past: Who acts: Teacher. 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 23

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So saying, he related the following Story of the Past:

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**Who acts:** Teacher · **What happens:** say, relate, follow · **To what, where:** following Story · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Teacher), 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:pg74064:3:25
# text = So saying, he related the following Story of the Past:
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	related	relate	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	following	follow	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	amod	_	_
8	Story	Story	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	Past	past	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund | Teacher *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **relate** | past | Teacher | the following Story of the Past |  |  |  |  | vn involve-107.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent story=Theme |
| 3 | **follow** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-1 «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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