---
title: Now these people always spoke in whispers, and Bluejay could not hea… — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: Now these people always spoke in whispers, and Bluejay could not hear what they said, and did not understand them. Who acts: people, Bluejay. 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 pr
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/6/30/)

<!-- 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/) / 30

# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, Bluejay Visits the Ghosts, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Now these people always spoke in whispers, and Bluejay could not hear what they said, and did not understand them.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** people, Bluejay · **What happens:** speak, not hear, say, not understand · **To what, where:** whispers, people · **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 (people, Bluejay), 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:pg66596:6:30
# text = Now these people always spoke in whispers, and Bluejay could not hear what they said, and did not understand them.
1	Now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
2	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	3	det	_	_
3	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	5	advmod	_	_
5	spoke	speak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	in	in	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
7	whispers	whisper	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	Bluejay	Bluejay	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
11	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
12	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	13	advmod	_	_
13	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
14	what	what	PRON	WP	PronType=Int	16	obj	_	_
15	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
18	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	21	cc	_	_
19	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	21	aux	_	_
20	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	21	advmod	_	_
21	understand	understand	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	ccomp	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	21	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **speak** *speech: other* | past | this people |  |  | whispers | now | always *property* | vn talk-37.5 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **hear** | could | Bluejay |  |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V how S»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 3 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | people |  |  |  |  | what *obj* | tree rules |
| 4 | **not** **understand** | past · do-support |  | people |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V NP PP.attribute»: agent=Experiencer they=Stimulus |

<!-- .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 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/6/29/)
- next →: [sentence 31](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/6/31/)
- ↑ back to [Bluejay Visits the Ghosts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66596/6/)