---
title: Suppose I were merely to countermarch and slip out of the city!” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Suppose I were merely to countermarch and slip out of the city!” Who acts: you, I. 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 157

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Suppose I were merely to countermarch and slip out of the city!”

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**Who acts:** you, I · **What happens:** suppose, countermarch, slip out · **To what, where:** city · **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 (you, 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:pg74064:5:163
# text = Suppose I were merely to countermarch and slip out of the city!”
1	Suppose	suppose	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
3	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
4	merely	merely	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	countermarch	countermarch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	ccomp	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	slip	slip	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
9	out	out	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	city	city	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **suppose** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Theme |
| 2 | **countermarch** | past | I |  |  |  |  | merely *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **slip out** | infinitive | I *not said here* | the city |  |  |  |  | vn split-23.2 «NP V NP apart»: agent=Agent city=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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