---
title: Every day he played at sticks, and he was almost always unlucky. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: Every day he played at sticks, and he was almost always unlucky. Who acts: man. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The First Corn, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The First Corn, sentence 2

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Every day he played at sticks, and he was almost always unlucky.

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**Who acts:** man · **What happens:** play, be · **To what, where:** sticks

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The First Corn. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man), 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:pg66596:8:2
# text = Every day he played at sticks, and he was almost always unlucky.
1	Every	every	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	2	det	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
4	played	play	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	at	at	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
9	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
10	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	13	cop	_	_
11	almost	almost	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	13	advmod	_	_
13	unlucky	unlucky	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **play** | past | man |  |  | sticks | day |  | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is** | past | man |  |  |  |  | always, unlucky *property* | tree rules |

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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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