---
title: Alas, my wretched misfortune, for no one will tell me the facts!” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Alas, my wretched misfortune, for no one will tell me the facts!” Who acts: one. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 6, sentence 53

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Alas, my wretched misfortune, for no one will tell me the facts!”

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**Who acts:** one · **What happens:** tell · **To what, where:** facts, me, wretched misfortune · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one), 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:pg74064:6:53
# text = Alas, my wretched misfortune, for no one will tell me the facts!”
1	Alas	alas	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	1	punct	_	_
3	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	wretched	wretched	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	misfortune	misfortune	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	for	for	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	no	no	DET	DT	PronType=Neg	9	det	_	_
9	one	one	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nsubj	_	_
10	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	facts	fact	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* | future | no one | the facts | me |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent i=Recipient fact=Topic |

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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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