---
title: She was forever asking the Great Spirit to tell her. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: She was forever asking the Great Spirit to tell her. Who acts: woman. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXXI. the Woman in the Moon, 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/pg73136/56/5/)

<!-- 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/) / [XXXI. the Woman in the Moon](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/56/) / 5

# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XXXI. the Woman in the Moon, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
She was forever asking the Great Spirit to tell her.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** woman · **What happens:** ask, tell · **To what, where:** Great Spirit, woman · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXXI. the Woman in the Moon. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (woman), 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:pg73136:56:5
# text = She was forever asking the Great Spirit to tell her.
1	She	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	forever	forever	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	asking	ask	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	7	det	_	_
6	Great	Great	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	flat	_	_
7	Spirit	Spirit	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obj	_	_
8	to	to	PART	TO	_	9	mark	_	_
9	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	parataxis	_	_
10	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	iobj	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past · progressive | woman |  | the Great Spirit |  |  | forever *property* | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent spirit=Recipient |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | to-infinitive |  |  | woman |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent she=Recipient |

<!-- .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 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/56/4/)
- next →: [sentence 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/56/6/)
- ↑ back to [XXXI. the Woman in the Moon](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/56/)