---
title: If a wall plank was wide, he split it. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: If a wall plank was wide, he split it. Who acts: wall plank, sun. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, A Bluejay Story, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, A Bluejay Story, sentence 160

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If a wall plank was wide, he split it.

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**Who acts:** wall plank, sun · **What happens:** be, split · **To what, where:** plank

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, A Bluejay Story. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wall plank, sun), 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:pg66596:4:160
# text = If a wall plank was wide, he split it.
1	If	if	SCONJ	IN	_	6	mark	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	wall	wall	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	plank	plank	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
6	wide	wide	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj	_	_
9	split	split	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
10	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** *a condition, not said to happen* | past | a wall plank |  |  |  |  | wide *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **split** | past | sun | plank |  |  |  |  | vn break-45.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Patient |

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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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