---
title: Said they: “What shall we do, your majesty?” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Said they: “What shall we do, your majesty?” Who acts: four, we. 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 54

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Said they: “What shall we do, your majesty?”

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**Who acts:** four, we · **What happens:** say, do · **To what, where:** majesty · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (four, we), 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:pg74064:4:58
# text = Said they: “What shall we do, your majesty?”
1	Said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	What	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	8	obj	_	_
6	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
7	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	majesty	majesty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | four |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **do** *in a quote* | shall | we | your majesty |  |  |  | What *obj* | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent what=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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