---
title: I am weak: do not kill my little ones. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: I am weak: do not kill my little ones. Who acts: 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 42

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I am weak: do not kill my little ones.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** be, not kill · **To what, where:** little ones

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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 (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:pg74064:5:44
# text = I am weak: do not kill my little ones.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	am	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	weak	weak	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
5	do	do	AUX	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
7	kill	kill	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	conj	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	10	nmod:poss	_	_
9	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	ones	one	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | I |  |  |  |  | weak *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **not** **kill** | infinitive · do-support | I *not said here* | my little ones |  |  |  |  | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent one=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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