---
title: While they wrangled, the Future Buddha thought: “There is no safety… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: While they wrangled, the Future Buddha thought: “There is no safety for a wrangler. Who acts: manner, Future Buddha, safety. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 5, sentence 125

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While they wrangled, the Future Buddha thought: “There is no safety for a wrangler.

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**Who acts:** manner, Future Buddha, safety · **What happens:** wrangle, think, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 5. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (manner, Future Buddha, safety), 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:pg74064:5:129
# text = While they wrangled, the Future Buddha thought: “There is no safety for a wrangler.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	3	mark	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	wrangled	wrangle	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	Future	Future	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	Buddha	Buddha	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
8	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	12	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	12	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	12	expl	_	_
12	is	be	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	ccomp	_	_
13	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	14	det	_	_
14	safety	safety	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nsubj	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	wrangler	wrangler	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **wrangle** | past | manner |  |  |  |  |  | vn battle-36.4 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **think** *speech: other* | past | the Future Buddha |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 3 | **be** *in a quote* | present | no safety for a wrangler |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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