---
title: They were very small and looked like ants. — The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian S… · tree and pragmatics
description: They were very small and looked like ants. Who acts: girls. A sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Star Boy, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories, The Star Boy, sentence 17

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They were very small and looked like ants.

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**Who acts:** girls · **What happens:** be, look

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This is a sentence of «The Punishment of the Stingy, and Other Indian Stories» by George Bird Grinnell, The Star Boy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (girls), 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:pg66596:9:17
# text = They were very small and looked like ants.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	very	very	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	small	small	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	looked	look	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	4	conj	_	_
7	like	like	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	ants	ant	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | girls *= girl* |  |  |  |  | small *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **look** | participle | girls *= girl* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | like ants | vn stimulus\_subject-30.4 «NP V PP.attribute»: agent=Stimulus |

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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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