---
title: Thought the hunter: “I have been struck by a bird of evil omen.” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Thought the hunter: “I have been struck by a bird of evil omen.” Who acts: bird. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 7, 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/pg74064/7/34/)

<!-- 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 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/7/) / 34

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 7, sentence 34

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Thought the hunter: “I have been struck by a bird of evil omen.”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** bird · **What happens:** think, strike · **To what, where:** hunter, I · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 7. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bird), 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:pg74064:7:36
# text = Thought the hunter: “I have been struck by a bird of evil omen.”
1	Thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	hunter	hunter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	9	punct	_	_
5	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	_
8	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	struck	strike	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	1	ccomp	_	_
10	by	by	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	bird	bird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obl	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	evil	evil	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	omen	omen	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past |  | the hunter |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent hunter=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 2 | **strike** *in a quote* | present · perfect · passive | a bird of evil omen | I |  |  |  |  | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP PP»: agent=Agent subject=Instrument |

<!-- .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 33](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/7/33/)
- next →: [sentence 35](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/7/35/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/7/)