---
title: She says a skull and bones is my brother-in-law!” — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: She says a skull and bones is my brother-in-law!” Who acts: sister, skull. 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.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/6/23/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Punishment of the Stingy, and Othe…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/) / [Bluejay Visits the Ghosts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/6/) / 23

# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Bluejay Visits the Ghosts, sentence 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She says a skull and bones is my brother-in-law!”

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** sister, skull · **What happens:** say, be · **To what, where:** brother · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
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 (sister, skull), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66596:6:23
# text = She says a skull and bones is my brother-in-law!”
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	says	say	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	skull	skull	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	nsubj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	bones	bone	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	_
7	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	brother	brother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	in	in	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	law	law	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | sister |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | present | a skull and bones | my brother and law |  |  |  | my *nmod:poss*; law *conj* | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/6/22/)
- next →: [sentence 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/6/24/)
- ↑ back to [Bluejay Visits the Ghosts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/6/)