---
title: There was snow when he started. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: There was snow when he started. Who acts: snow. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXIV. the White Stone Canoe, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XXIV. the White Stone Canoe, sentence 17

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There was snow when he started.

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**Who acts:** snow · **What happens:** be, start

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXIV. the White Stone Canoe. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (snow), 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:pg73136:49:17
# text = There was snow when he started.
1	There	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	2	expl	_	_
2	was	be	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	snow	snow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nsubj	_	_
4	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	6	advmod	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **be** | past | snow |  |  | there |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **start** | past | snow |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP.eventuality V»: agent=Eventuality |

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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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