---
title: He asked all the birds, but they could not tell him. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: He asked all the birds, but they could not tell him. Who acts: Bluejay, birds. 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 9

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He asked all the birds, but they could not tell him.

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**Who acts:** Bluejay, birds · **What happens:** ask, not tell · **To what, where:** birds, Bluejay · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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, birds), 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:pg66596:6:9
# text = He asked all the birds, but they could not tell him.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	5	det:predet	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	birds	bird	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	ccomp	_	_
12	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Bluejay |  | all birds |  |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP whether S»: agent=Agent bird=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **not** **tell** *speech: assert* | could | birds *= bird* |  | Bluejay |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent he=Recipient |

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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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