---
title: That night, as the little family sat about the fire eating fat buffa… — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: That night, as the little family sat about the fire eating fat buffalo ribs, Low Wolf said: “Ah, how foolish were the people not to come with me; here we have a fine sheltered camp, plenty of wood, and on all sides the buffalo darken the prairie. Who acts: Low Wolf, foolish, we, buffalo. A sentence 
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/12/28/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Punishment of the Stingy, and Othe…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/) / [Thunder Maker and Cold Maker](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/12/) / 28

# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Thunder Maker and Cold Maker, sentence 28

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
That night, as the little family sat about the fire eating fat buffalo ribs, Low Wolf said: “Ah, how foolish were the people not to come with me; here we have a fine sheltered camp, plenty of wood, and on all sides the buffalo darken the prairie.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Low Wolf, foolish, we, buffalo · **What happens:** sit, eat, say, not come, have, shelter · **To what, where:** fat buffalo ribs, fine sheltered camp, prairie, sides · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Thunder Maker and Cold Maker. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Low Wolf, foolish, we, buffalo), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66596:12:28
# text = That night, as the little family sat about the fire eating fat buffalo ribs, Low Wolf said: “Ah, how foolish were the people not to come with me; here we have a fine sheltered camp, plenty of wood, and on all sides the buffalo darken the prairie.
1	That	that	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	2	det	_	_
2	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl:unmarked	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	as	as	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	family	family	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
8	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	about	about	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	eating	eat	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
13	fat	fat	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
14	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	compound	_	_
15	ribs	rib	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	19	punct	_	_
17	Low	low	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	Wolf	Wolf	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	nsubj	_	_
19	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	25	punct	_	_
21	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	Ah	ah	INTJ	UH	_	25	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	25	punct	_	_
24	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	25	advmod	_	_
25	foolish	foolish	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	31	nsubj	_	_
26	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	31	aux	_	_
27	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	28	det	_	_
28	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	31	nsubj	_	_
29	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	31	advmod	_	_
30	to	to	PART	TO	_	31	mark	_	_
31	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	ccomp	_	_
32	with	with	ADP	IN	_	33	case	_	_
33	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	31	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
34	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	37	punct	_	_
35	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	37	advmod	_	_
36	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	37	nsubj	_	_
37	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	8	parataxis	_	_
38	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	41	det	_	_
39	fine	fine	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	41	amod	_	_
40	sheltered	shelter	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	41	amod	_	_
41	camp	camp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	37	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
42	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	43	punct	_	_
43	plenty	plenty	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	41	conj	_	_
44	of	of	ADP	IN	_	45	case	_	_
45	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	43	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
46	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	53	punct	_	_
47	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	53	cc	_	_
48	on	on	ADP	IN	_	50	case	_	_
49	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	50	det	_	_
50	sides	side	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	53	obl	_	_
51	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	52	det	_	_
52	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	53	nsubj	_	_
53	darken	darken	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	37	conj	_	_
54	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	55	det	_	_
55	prairie	prairie	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	53	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
56	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past |  |  |  |  | night | as the little family; about the fire | tree rules |
| 2 | **eat** | gerund |  | fat buffalo ribs |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rib=Patient |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | Low Wolf |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 4 | **not** **come** *in a quote* | past | foolish |  |  |  |  | with Low Wolf *= wolf*; the people *nsubj* | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 5 | **have** *in a quote* | present | we | a fine sheltered camp and plenty of wood |  | here |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent camp=Patient |
| 6 | **shelter** *in a quote* | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 7 | **darken** *in a quote* | infinitive | the buffalo | the prairie |  | all sides |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent prairie=Patient |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/12/27/)
- next →: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/12/29/)
- ↑ back to [Thunder Maker and Cold Maker](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/12/)