---
title: “The Sun-children were told to dry the earth. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: “The Sun-children were told to dry the earth. Who acts: Sun children. 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 36

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“The Sun-children were told to dry the earth.

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**Who acts:** Sun children · **What happens:** tell, dry · **To what, where:** Sun children, earth · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (Sun children), 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:pg73136:24:36
# text = “The Sun-children were told to dry the earth.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
3	Sun	Sun	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	nsubj:pass	_	_
6	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	aux:pass	_	_
7	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	dry	dry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	xcomp	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	earth	earth	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	9	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past · passive |  | the Sun children |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 2 | **dry** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | the Sun children *not said here* | the earth |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient earth=Result |

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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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