---
title: “How did you know that his gun was short?” — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: “How did you know that his gun was short?” Who acts: you, gun. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, The Indian’s Eye Training, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, The Indian’s Eye Training, sentence 15

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“How did you know that his gun was short?”

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**Who acts:** you, gun · **What happens:** know, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, The Indian’s Eye Training. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (you, gun), 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:pg73136:11:15
# text = “How did you know that his gun was short?”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	How	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	5	advmod	_	_
3	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=2|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
4	you	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
5	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	that	that	SCONJ	IN	_	10	mark	_	_
7	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	gun	gun	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
9	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
10	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **know** *in a quote* | past · do-support | you |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Experiencer |
| 2 | **is** *in a quote* | past | man's gun |  |  |  |  | short *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:** «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, Project Gutenberg book 73136 (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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