---
title: “Very well,” said the king’s men in assent. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: “Very well,” said the king’s men in assent. Who acts: men. 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 57

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“Very well,” said the king’s men in assent.

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** say · **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 (men), 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:pg74064:4:61
# text = “Very well,” said the king’s men in assent.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Very	very	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
3	well	well	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	6	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’s	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	assent	assent	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the king's men |  |  |  |  | well *property* | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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