---
title: “For what purpose did you capture us?” inquired the first. — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: “For what purpose did you capture us?” inquired the first. Who acts: you. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 8, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 8, sentence 113

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“For what purpose did you capture us?” inquired the first.

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**Who acts:** you · **What happens:** capture, inquire · **To what, where:** us, first · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 8. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you), 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:pg74064:8:115
# text = “For what purpose did you capture us?” inquired the first.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	For	for	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
3	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	7	obj	_	_
4	purpose	purpose	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
5	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
6	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	capture	capture	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	11	ccomp	_	_
8	us	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
11	inquired	inquire	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	first	first	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	11	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **capture** *in a quote* | past · do-support | you | us |  |  |  | what  purpose *obj* | vn steal-10.5-1 «NP V NP NP»: agent=Agent what=Beneficiary we=Theme |
| 2 | **inquire** *speech: other* | past |  | the first |  |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V how S»: agent=Agent clause=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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