---
title: “If, O king, I do not obtain my desire, I shall die.” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: “If, O king, I do not obtain my desire, I shall die.” Who acts: consort, my. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 5, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/5/167/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The grateful elephant](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/) / [Opening, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/5/) / 167

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 5, sentence 167

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“If, O king, I do not obtain my desire, I shall die.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** consort, my · **What happens:** not obtain, die, desire · **To what, where:** desire

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (consort, my), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg74064:5:173
# text = “If, O king, I do not obtain my desire, I shall die.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	O	of	ADP	IN	Abbr=Yes	5	case	_	_
5	king	king	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
7	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
8	do	do	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
9	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	10	advmod	_	_
10	obtain	obtain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
11	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	desire	desire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
15	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	16	aux	_	_
16	die	die	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **obtain** *in a quote* | present · do-support | the consort of Dīghīti king of Kosala *= consort* | my desire |  |  |  | king *advcl* | vn obtain-13.5.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent desire=Theme |
| 2 | **die** *in a quote* | shall | the consort of Dīghīti king of Kosala *= consort* |  |  |  |  |  | vn calibratable\_cos-45.6.1 «NP.attribute V»: agent=Attribute |
| 3 | **desire** *in a quote* |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom desire «feeling transitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 166](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/5/166/)
- next →: [sentence 168](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/5/168/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/5/)