---
title: So saying, they cleft the Brahman in twain with a sharp sword and le… — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: So saying, they cleft the Brahman in twain with a sharp sword and left him lying on the road. Who acts: Riches, Brahman. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 8, 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/pg74064/8/123/)

<!-- 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 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/8/) / 123

# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 8, sentence 123

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
So saying, they cleft the Brahman in twain with a sharp sword and left him lying on the road.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Riches, Brahman · **What happens:** say, cleft, leave, lie · **To what, where:** Brahman, twain, road · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (Riches, Brahman), 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:pg74064:8:125
# text = So saying, they cleft the Brahman in twain with a sharp sword and left him lying on the road.
1	So	so	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
2	saying	say	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	cleft	cleft	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	parataxis	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	Brahman	Brahman	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	twain	twain	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
10	with	with	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
11	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
12	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	13	amod	_	_
13	sword	sword	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
15	left	leave	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
16	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	lying	lie	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	xcomp	_	_
18	on	on	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	road	road	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **cleft** | present | Riches *= rich* | the Brahman |  | twain |  | with a sharp sword | tree rules |
| 3 | **leave** | past | Riches *= rich* *not said here* | Brahman |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **lie** | gerund | Brahman *not said here* |  |  | the road |  |  | vn assuming\_position-50 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent on road=Location |

<!-- .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 122](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/8/122/)
- next →: [sentence 124](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/8/124/)
- ↑ back to [Opening, part 8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg74064/8/)