---
title: It was winter, and the people had hardly anything to eat. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: It was winter, and the people had hardly anything to eat. Who acts: village, people. 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 7

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It was winter, and the people had hardly anything to eat.

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**Who acts:** village, people · **What happens:** be, have, eat · **To what, where:** winter, anything

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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 (village, people), 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:pg66596:4:7
# text = It was winter, and the people had hardly anything to eat.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	winter	winter	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
8	had	have	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
9	hardly	hardly	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	8	obj	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | village | winter |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **have** | past | the people | anything |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Patient |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive | the people *not said here* | anything *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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