---
title: The coyote seemed to understand. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: The coyote seemed to understand. Who acts: coyote. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Little Friend Coyote, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Little Friend Coyote, sentence 141

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The coyote seemed to understand.

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**Who acts:** coyote · **What happens:** seem, understand

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Little Friend Coyote. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (coyote), 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:pg66596:18:141
# text = The coyote seemed to understand.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	coyote	coyote	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
3	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **seem** | past | the coyote |  |  |  |  |  | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme clause=Attribute |
| 2 | **understand** | to-infinitive | the coyote *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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