---
title: This was long before they had horses. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: This was long before they had horses. Who acts: This, lodges. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The First Medicine Lodge, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The First Medicine Lodge, sentence 3

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This was long before they had horses.

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**Who acts:** This, lodges · **What happens:** be, have · **To what, where:** horses

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The First Medicine Lodge. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (This, lodges), 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:pg66596:11:3
# text = This was long before they had horses.
1	This	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	long	long	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	before	before	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
5	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	advcl	_	_
7	horses	horse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | This |  |  |  |  | long *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | lodges *= lodge* | horses |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent horse=Patient |

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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 Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Project Gutenberg book 66596 (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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