---
title: Why, pray, is he not afraid?” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Why, pray, is he not afraid?” Who acts: you, ogre. 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 42

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Why, pray, is he not afraid?”

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**Who acts:** you, ogre · **What happens:** pray, not be

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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, ogre), 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:pg74064:8:42
# text = Why, pray, is he not afraid?”
1	Why	why	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	_
3	pray	pray	VERB	VB	Mood=Imp|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
7	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	8	advmod	_	_
8	afraid	afraid	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pray** | imperative | you *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn long-32.2 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **not** **is** | present | ogre |  |  |  |  | afraid *property* | tree rules |

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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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