---
title: Thought he: “My teacher disregarded my words and is dead.” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Thought he: “My teacher disregarded my words and is dead.” Who acts: teacher, my. 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 144

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Thought he: “My teacher disregarded my words and is dead.”

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**Who acts:** teacher, my · **What happens:** think, disregard, be, word · **To what, where:** Buddha, words · **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 (teacher, my), 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:pg74064:8:146
# text = Thought he: “My teacher disregarded my words and is dead.”
1	Thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	1	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	7	punct	_	_
4	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	My	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	teacher	teacher	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
7	disregarded	disregard	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	1	parataxis	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	cop	_	_
12	dead	dead	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	1	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	1	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past |  | Buddha |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent he=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 2 | **disregard** *in a quote* | past | My teacher | my words |  |  |  |  | vn neglect-75.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent word=Theme |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | My teacher *not said here* |  |  |  |  | dead *property* | tree rules |
| 4 | **word** *in a quote* |  | my |  |  |  |  |  | nom word «communication transitive»: poss=agent |

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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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