---
title: And the carpenters’ children used to take hold of him by the trunk a… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: And the carpenters’ children used to take hold of him by the trunk and play with him, both in the water and on dry land. Who acts: carpenters. 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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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/3/49/)

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 3, sentence 49

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And the carpenters’ children used to take hold of him by the trunk and play with him, both in the water and on dry land.

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**Who acts:** carpenters · **What happens:** ', use, take, play, hold · **To what, where:** children, water, hold, Elephant

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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 (carpenters), 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:pg74064:3:51
# text = And the carpenters’ children used to take hold of him by the trunk and play with him, both in the water and on dry land.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	4	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	carpenters	carpenter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’	'	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
6	used	use	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	acl	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	xcomp	_	_
9	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
11	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nmod	_	_
12	by	by	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	trunk	trunk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
16	play	play	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
17	with	with	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
20	both	both	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc:preconj	_	_
21	in	in	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
24	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	27	cc	_	_
25	on	on	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
26	dry	dry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	27	amod	_	_
27	land	land	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **'** | present | the carpenters | children |  | the water and dry land |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **use** | participle |  | children *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn use-105.1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **take** | to-infinitive |  | hold of Elephant |  |  |  | by the trunk | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Theme |
| 4 | **play** | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  | with Elephant | vn play-114.2-1 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent with he=Co-Agent |
| 5 | **hold** |  |  | Elephant |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: of=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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