---
title: The man actually cut off his two principal tusks! — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: The man actually cut off his two principal tusks! Who acts: man. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 4, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 4, sentence 145

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The man actually cut off his two principal tusks!

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** cut off · **To what, where:** two principal tusks

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg74064:4:151
# text = The man actually cut off his two principal tusks!
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
3	actually	actually	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	cut	cut	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	off	off	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
7	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	9	nummod	_	_
8	principal	principal	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	tusks	tusk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **cut off** | past | the man | man's two principal tusks |  |  |  | actually *property* | vn stop-55.4-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Affector tusk=Eventuality |

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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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