---
title: Lynx beat his wives because they couldn’t find the beaver. — Myths and Folk-lore of the Timiskaming Algonquin… · tree and pragmatics
description: Lynx beat his wives because they couldn’t find the beaver. Who acts: Lynx. A sentence of «Myths and Folk-lore of the Timiskaming Algonquin and Timagami Ojibwa» by Frank G. Speck, Myths and Folk-lore of the Timagami Ojibwa., part 6, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Myths and Folk-lore of the Timiskaming Algonquin and Timagami Ojibwa, Myths and Folk-lore of the Timagami Ojibwa., part 6, sentence 167

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Lynx beat his wives because they couldn’t find the beaver.

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**Who acts:** Lynx · **What happens:** beat, not find · **To what, where:** wives, beaver

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This is a sentence of «Myths and Folk-lore of the Timiskaming Algonquin and Timagami Ojibwa» by Frank G. Speck, Myths and Folk-lore of the Timagami Ojibwa., part 6. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Lynx), 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:pg66509:16:167
# text = Lynx beat his wives because they couldn’t find the beaver.
1	Lynx	Lynx	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
2	beat	beat	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	wives	wife	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
5	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
6	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
7	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
9	find	find	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	advcl	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	beaver	beaver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **beat** | past | Lynx | Marten's wives |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location wife=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **find** | could | Lynx | the beaver |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent beaver=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:** «Myths and Folk-lore of the Timiskaming Algonquin and Timagami Ojibwa» by Frank G. Speck, Project Gutenberg book 66509 (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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