---
title: I should have drifted away twice if I had not caught hold of the can… — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: I should have drifted away twice if I had not caught hold of the canoe.” Who acts: I. 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 80

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I should have drifted away twice if I had not caught hold of the canoe.”

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** drift away, not catch, hold · **To what, where:** I, canoe

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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 (I), 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:pg66596:4:80
# text = I should have drifted away twice if I had not caught hold of the canoe.”
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	aux	_	_
4	drifted	drift	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	away	away	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
6	twice	twice	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	4	advmod	_	_
7	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	11	mark	_	_
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj:pass	_	_
9	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	caught	catch	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	advcl	_	_
12	hold	hold	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
13	of	of	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	canoe	canoe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **drift away** | should · perfect | I |  |  |  |  | away, twice *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **catch** *a condition, not said to happen* | past · perfect · passive |  | I |  |  |  | hold of the canoe *obj* | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: subject=Beneficiary hold=Theme |
| 3 | **hold** |  |  | the canoe |  |  |  |  | nom hold «act transitive»: of=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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