---
title: He would sail down low over the Buffalo’s backs, and was only just a… — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: He would sail down low over the Buffalo’s backs, and was only just able to keep above them. Who acts: Hawk. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Girl Who Was the Ring [1], with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The Girl Who Was the Ring \[1\], sentence 152

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He would sail down low over the Buffalo’s backs, and was only just able to keep above them.

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**Who acts:** Hawk · **What happens:** sail down, be, keep · **To what, where:** backs

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Girl Who Was the Ring \[1\]. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Hawk), 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:pg66596:7:152
# text = He would sail down low over the Buffalo’s backs, and was only just able to keep above them.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	sail	sail	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	down	down	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	_
5	low	low	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	3	advmod	_	_
6	over	over	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	Buffalo	Buffalo	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	10	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	’s	's	PART	POS	_	8	case	_	_
10	backs	back	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	16	cc	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	16	cop	_	_
14	only	only	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
15	just	just	ADV	RB	_	16	advmod	_	_
16	able	able	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	conj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	keep	keep	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	xcomp	_	_
19	above	above	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sail down** | would | Hawk |  |  | the Buffalo's backs |  | down, low *property* | vn nonvehicle-51.4.2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Agent over back=Trajectory |
| 2 | **is** | past | Hawk *not said here* |  |  |  |  | able *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **keep** | to-infinitive | Hawk *not said here* |  |  |  |  | above sides *= side* | vn keep-15.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent above they=Location |

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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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