---
title: He saw a flash of lightning fill the valley. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: He saw a flash of lightning fill the valley. Who acts: Butterfly, flash, lightning. 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 27

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He saw a flash of lightning fill the valley.

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**Who acts:** Butterfly, flash, lightning · **What happens:** see, fill, flash · **To what, where:** valley · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Butterfly, flash, lightning), 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:pg73136:23:27
# text = He saw a flash of lightning fill the valley.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	flash	flash	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	nsubj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
7	fill	fill	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	valley	valley	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **see** | past | Butterfly |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **fill** | present | a flash of lightning | the valley |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent valley=Patient |
| 3 | **flash** |  | lightning |  |  |  |  |  | nom flash «event intransitive»: of=agent |

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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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