---
title: It was the lightning. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: It was the lightning. Who acts: arrow. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, How the Cave People Found Dry Land on the Earth, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, How the Cave People Found Dry Land on the Earth, sentence 16

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It was the lightning.

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**Who acts:** arrow · **What happens:** be · **To what, where:** lightning

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, How the Cave People Found Dry Land on the Earth. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (arrow), 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:pg73136:24:16
# text = It was the lightning.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	cop	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	lightning	lightning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | arrow | the lightning |  |  |  |  | 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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