---
title: Two weasels wanted to cross the river. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: Two weasels wanted to cross the river. Who acts: Two weasels. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XIII. the Blue Heron and the Wolf, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XIII. the Blue Heron and the Wolf, sentence 3

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Two weasels wanted to cross the river.

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**Who acts:** Two weasels · **What happens:** want, cross · **To what, where:** river

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XIII. the Blue Heron and the Wolf. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Two weasels), 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:pg73136:38:3
# text = Two weasels wanted to cross the river.
1	Two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	weasels	weasel	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	nsubj	_	_
3	wanted	want	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	to	to	PART	TO	_	5	mark	_	_
5	cross	cross	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	3	xcomp	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
7	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **want** | past | Two weasels |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 2 | **cross** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | Two weasels *not said here* | the river |  |  |  |  | vn crane-40.3.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent river=Patient |

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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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