---
title: And laying hold of his feet, they dragged him and threw him back of… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: And laying hold of his feet, they dragged him and threw him back of the moat. Who acts: feet. 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 73

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And laying hold of his feet, they dragged him and threw him back of the moat.

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**Who acts:** feet · **What happens:** lay, drag, throw, hold · **To what, where:** hold, king, feet

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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 (feet), 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:pg74064:4:77
# text = And laying hold of his feet, they dragged him and threw him back of the moat.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	2	cc	_	_
2	laying	lay	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	9	advcl	_	_
3	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	dragged	drag	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	threw	throw	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	conj	_	_
13	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	back	back	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
15	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	moat	moat	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **lay** | gerund | feet *= foot* *not said here* | hold of king's feet |  |  |  |  | vn create-26.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent hold=Result |
| 2 | **drag** | past | feet *= foot* | king |  |  |  |  | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 3 | **throw** | past | feet *= foot* *not said here* | king |  |  |  |  | vn throw-17.1-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent he=Theme |
| 4 | **hold** |  |  | king's feet |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: of=patient |

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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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