---
title: Said the ascetic: “Who will take this and fetch me wood?” — The grateful elephant · tree and pragmatics
description: Said the ascetic: “Who will take this and fetch me wood?” Who acts: ascetic. A sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 9, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The grateful elephant, Opening, part 9, sentence 154

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Said the ascetic: “Who will take this and fetch me wood?”

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**Who acts:** ascetic · **What happens:** say, take, fetch · **To what, where:** this, wood, ascetic · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The grateful elephant» by Eugene Watson Burlingame, Opening, part 9. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (ascetic), 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:pg74064:9:164
# text = Said the ascetic: “Who will take this and fetch me wood?”
1	Said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	ascetic	ascetic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	8	punct	_	_
5	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	Who	who	PRON	WP	PronType=Rel	8	nsubj	_	_
7	will	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	_
8	take	take	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	1	ccomp	_	_
9	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	8	obj	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	fetch	fetch	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	conj	_	_
12	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the ascetic |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **take** *in a quote* | future |  | this |  |  |  | Who *nsubj* | vn bring-11.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent this=Theme |
| 3 | **fetch** *in a quote* | infinitive |  | wood | the ascetic *= ascetic* |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1-1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent i=Beneficiary wood=Theme |

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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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