---
title: She gave him some food, but he could not eat. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: She gave him some food, but he could not eat. Who acts: dirt, boy. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XV. the Good Bear and the Lost Boy, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XV. the Good Bear and the Lost Boy, sentence 7

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She gave him some food, but he could not eat.

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**Who acts:** dirt, boy · **What happens:** give, not eat · **To what, where:** food, boy

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XV. the Good Bear and the Lost Boy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (dirt, boy), 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:pg73136:40:7
# text = She gave him some food, but he could not eat.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	gave	give	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	iobj	_	_
4	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	5	det	_	_
5	food	food	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
7	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
8	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
9	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
10	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	11	advmod	_	_
11	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **give** | past | dirt | some food | boy |  |  |  | vn give-13.1-1 «NP V NP-Dative NP»: agent=Agent he=Recipient food=Theme |
| 2 | **not** **eat** | could | boy |  |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V»: agent=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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