---
title: He tried to sing and to call out loud, but they laughed at him. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: He tried to sing and to call out loud, but they laughed at him. Who acts: Bluejay, singers. 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 160

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He tried to sing and to call out loud, but they laughed at him.

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**Who acts:** Bluejay, singers · **What happens:** try, sing, call out, laugh

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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 (Bluejay, singers), 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:pg66596:6:160
# text = He tried to sing and to call out loud, but they laughed at him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	sing	sing	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	call	call	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
8	out	out	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	loud	loud	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
11	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
12	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
13	laughed	laugh	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
14	at	at	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | Bluejay |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Bluejay *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **call out** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive | Bluejay *not said here* |  |  |  |  | loud *property* | vn initiate\_communication-37.4.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 4 | **laugh** | past | singers *= singer* |  |  |  |  | at Bluejay | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «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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