---
title: He tried to get up, and his tail broke off short in the ice. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: He tried to get up, and his tail broke off short in the ice. Who acts: bear, tail. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XII. How the Bear Lost His Tail, 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/pg73136/37/28/)

<!-- 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/) / [XII. How the Bear Lost His Tail](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/37/) / 28

# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XII. How the Bear Lost His Tail, sentence 28

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
He tried to get up, and his tail broke off short in the ice.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** bear, tail · **What happens:** try, get up, break off

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XII. How the Bear Lost His Tail. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (bear, tail), 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:pg73136:37:28
# text = He tried to get up, and his tail broke off short in the ice.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	tried	try	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	get	get	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	up	up	ADP	RP	_	4	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
8	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	tail	tail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	_
10	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
11	off	off	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	xcomp	_	_
13	in	in	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	ice	ice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **try** | past | bear |  |  |  |  |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **get up** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | bear *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |
| 3 | **break off** | past | bear's tail |  |  |  |  | short *property* | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |

<!-- .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 27](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/37/27/)
- next →: [sentence 29](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/37/29/)
- ↑ back to [XII. How the Bear Lost His Tail](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/37/)