---
title: The porcupine was chosen head chief of the animals because nothing c… — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: The porcupine was chosen head chief of the animals because nothing could hurt him. Who acts: porcupine, nothing. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXXIII. the Chipmunk’s Black Stripes, 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/pg73136/58/2/)

<!-- 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/) / [XXXIII. the Chipmunk’s Black Stripes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/58/) / 2

# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XXXIII. the Chipmunk’s Black Stripes, sentence 2

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
The porcupine was chosen head chief of the animals because nothing could hurt him.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** porcupine, nothing · **What happens:** choose, be, hurt · **To what, where:** chosen head chief, porcupine

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXXIII. the Chipmunk’s Black Stripes. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (porcupine, nothing), 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:pg73136:58:2
# text = The porcupine was chosen head chief of the animals because nothing could hurt him.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	porcupine	porcupine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
4	chosen	choose	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	6	amod	_	_
5	head	head	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	compound	_	_
6	chief	chief	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	animals	animal	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	_
10	because	because	SCONJ	IN	_	13	mark	_	_
11	nothing	nothing	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Neg	13	nsubj	_	_
12	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	hurt	hurt	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	acl	_	_
14	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	13	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **choose** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn get-13.5.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** | past | the porcupine | chosen head chief |  |  |  | of the animals | tree rules |
| 3 | **hurt** | could | nothing | porcupine |  |  |  |  | vn hurt-40.8.3-2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer he=Patient |

<!-- .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 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/58/1/)
- next →: [sentence 3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/58/3/)
- ↑ back to [XXXIII. the Chipmunk’s Black Stripes](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/58/)