---
title: He preferred to be alone. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: He preferred to be alone. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Nothing Child, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Nothing Child, sentence 2

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He preferred to be alone.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** prefer, be

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Nothing Child. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg66596:15:2
# text = He preferred to be alone.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	preferred	prefer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
4	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	cop	_	_
5	alone	alone	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **prefer** | past | man |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Pivot |
| 2 | **is** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | alone *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 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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