---
title: It became night, and his brother-in-law was sick. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: It became night, and his brother-in-law was sick. Who acts: neck, brother. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Bluejay Visits the Ghosts, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Bluejay Visits the Ghosts, sentence 144

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It became night, and his brother-in-law was sick.

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**Who acts:** neck, brother · **What happens:** become, be · **To what, where:** night

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, Bluejay Visits the Ghosts. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (neck, brother), 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:pg66596:6:144
# text = It became night, and his brother-in-law was sick.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	became	become	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	law	law	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	conj	_	_
12	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
13	sick	sick	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	2	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **become** | past | neck | night |  |  |  |  | vn become-109.1-1-1 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Patient |
| 2 | **is** | past | Bluejay's brother and law |  |  |  |  | sick *property* | tree rules |

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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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