---
title: They say white elk and white deer watch it from the shore. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: They say white elk and white deer watch it from the shore. Who acts: Indians, white elk. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, A Legend of Minnehaha Falls, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, A Legend of Minnehaha Falls, sentence 27

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They say white elk and white deer watch it from the shore.

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**Who acts:** Indians, white elk · **What happens:** say, watch · **To what, where:** canoe, shore · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, A Legend of Minnehaha Falls. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Indians, white elk), 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:pg73136:46:27
# text = They say white elk and white deer watch it from the shore.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	say	say	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	elk	elk	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	nsubj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	7	cc	_	_
6	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	amod	_	_
7	deer	deer	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	conj	_	_
8	watch	watch	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	ccomp	_	_
9	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	obj	_	_
10	from	from	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	shore	shore	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | present | Indians *= indian* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **watch** | present | white elk and white deer | canoe |  | the shore |  |  | vn assessment-34.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |

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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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