---
title: “I didn’t come for timber, I assure you, but I came for this elephan… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: “I didn’t come for timber, I assure you, but I came for this elephant.” 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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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 3, sentence 54

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“I didn’t come for timber, I assure you, but I came for this elephant.”

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**Who acts:** carpenters · **What happens:** not come, assure, come · **To what, where:** you

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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:pg74064:3:56
# text = “I didn’t come for timber, I assure you, but I came for this elephant.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	5	advmod	_	_
5	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	for	for	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	timber	timber	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
9	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	assure	assure	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
11	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Person=2|PronType=Prs	10	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
13	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
15	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	parataxis	_	_
16	for	for	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	18	det	_	_
18	elephant	elephant	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **come** *in a quote* | past · do-support | the carpenters *= carpenter* |  |  |  |  | for timber | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **assure** *in a quote* | present | the carpenters *= carpenter* |  | you |  |  |  | vn advise-37.9 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent you=Recipient |
| 3 | **come** *in a quote* | past | the carpenters *= carpenter* |  |  |  |  | for this elephant | vn escape-51.1-1 «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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