---
title: Until recent years, one of the sacred duties of certain elders of th… — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: Until recent years, one of the sacred duties of certain elders of the tribes was the handing down of these histories to their successors. Who acts: one. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Stories and the Story-tellers, with its depende
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/2/3/)

<!-- 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/) / [The Stories and the Story-tellers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/2/) / 3

# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The Stories and the Story-tellers, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Until recent years, one of the sacred duties of certain elders of the tribes was the handing down of these histories to their successors.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** one · **What happens:** hand down

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Stories and the Story-tellers. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (one), 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:pg66596:2:3
# text = Until recent years, one of the sacred duties of certain elders of the tribes was the handing down of these histories to their successors.
1	Until	until	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	recent	recent	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
5	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nsubj	_	_
6	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	sacred	sacred	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	duties	duty	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nmod	_	_
10	of	of	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	certain	certain	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	elders	elder	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	nmod	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	tribes	tribe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nmod	_	_
16	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	18	aux	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	handing	hand	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
19	down	down	ADV	RB	_	18	advmod	_	_
20	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
21	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	22	det	_	_
22	histories	history	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	18	obl	_	_
23	to	to	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	25	nmod:poss	_	_
25	successors	successor	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hand down** | past · progressive | one of the sacred duties of certain elders of the tribes |  |  |  | year | of this histories to elders's successors; down *property* | vn send-11.1-1 «NP V NP PP.initial\_location»: agent=Agent of history=Initial\_Location |

<!-- .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 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/2/2/)
- next →: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/2/4/)
- ↑ back to [The Stories and the Story-tellers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/2/)