---
title: He placed a little cutting in the water, and it changed at once into… — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: He placed a little cutting in the water, and it changed at once into a large, pure white beaver. Who acts: power, cutting. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Beaver Stick, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The Beaver Stick, sentence 138

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He placed a little cutting in the water, and it changed at once into a large, pure white beaver.

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**Who acts:** power, cutting · **What happens:** place, change · **To what, where:** little cutting, water

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Beaver Stick. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (power, cutting), 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:pg66596:17:138
# text = He placed a little cutting in the water, and it changed at once into a large, pure white beaver.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	placed	place	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
4	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	cutting	cutting	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	changed	change	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
13	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	12	obl	_	_
15	into	into	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
16	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
17	large	large	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	17	punct	_	_
19	pure	pure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	21	amod	_	_
21	beaver	beaver	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **place** | past | power | a little cutting |  | the water |  |  | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent cutting=Theme in water=Destination |
| 2 | **change** | past | cutting |  |  |  |  | into a large white beaver *result* | vn turn-26.6.1-1 «NP.patient V PP.result»: agent=Patient into beaver=Result |

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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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