---
title: It was a sea-shell filled with water. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: It was a sea-shell filled with water. Who acts: room. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, A Navajo Medicine Chant, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, A Navajo Medicine Chant, sentence 11

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It was a sea-shell filled with water.

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**Who acts:** room · **What happens:** be, fill · **To what, where:** sea shell

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, A Navajo Medicine Chant. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (room), 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:pg73136:23:11
# text = It was a sea-shell filled with water.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
4	sea	sea	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	shell	shell	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	filled	fill	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	acl	_	_
8	with	with	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | room | a sea shell |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **fill** | participle |  | a sea shell *not said here* |  |  |  | with water | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent with water=Instrument |

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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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