---
title: The tall, curiously carved totem poles of Alaska are really carved f… — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: The tall, curiously carved totem poles of Alaska are really carved family histories. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, Meaning of Indian Totems and Names, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/14/17/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Wigwam stories told by North American…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/) / [Meaning of Indian Totems and Names](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/14/) / 17

# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, Meaning of Indian Totems and Names, sentence 17

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The tall, curiously carved totem poles of Alaska are really carved family histories.

<!-- .vintro -->
**What happens:** carve · **To what, where:** totem poles

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, Meaning of Indian Totems and Names. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg73136:14:17
# text = The tall, curiously carved totem poles of Alaska are really carved family histories.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	tall	tall	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
4	curiously	curiously	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	carved	carve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	conj	_	_
6	totem	totem	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	compound	_	_
7	poles	pole	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	Alaska	Alaska	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	nmod	_	_
10	are	be	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	12	aux:pass	_	_
11	really	really	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	carved	carve	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	5	conj	_	_
13	family	family	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	histories	history	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **carve** | participle |  |  |  |  |  | curiously *property* | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **carve** | present · passive |  | totem poles of Alaska |  |  |  | family histories *obj* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP NP»: subject=Beneficiary history=Product |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/14/16/)
- next →: [sentence 18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/14/18/)
- ↑ back to [Meaning of Indian Totems and Names](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/14/)