---
title: I speak as I do because I keep thinking: ‘Alas! — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: I speak as I do because I keep thinking: ‘Alas! Who acts: I. 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 66

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I speak as I do because I keep thinking: ‘Alas!

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** speak, do, keep, think · **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 (I), 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:pg74064:4:70
# text = I speak as I do because I keep thinking: ‘Alas!
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	speak	speak	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
4	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	do	do	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
6	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	keep	keep	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	_
9	thinking	think	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
11	‘	'	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	2	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **do** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **keep** | present | I |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **think** *speech: other* | gerund | I *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: 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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