---
title: He makes it secretly in the dark forest, and white men have tried fo… — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: He makes it secretly in the dark forest, and white men have tried for years to solve the problem of its swiftness. Who acts: Sound, white men. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, Some Things the Indians Knew Before White Men Came, with its dependency
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, Some Things the Indians Knew Before White Men Came, sentence 4

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He makes it secretly in the dark forest, and white men have tried for years to solve the problem of its swiftness.

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**Who acts:** Sound, white men · **What happens:** make, try, solve · **To what, where:** strength, dark forest, problem

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, Some Things the Indians Knew Before White Men Came. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Sound, white men), 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:pg73136:6:4
# text = He makes it secretly in the dark forest, and white men have tried for years to solve the problem of its swiftness.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	makes	make	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	obj	_	_
4	secretly	secretly	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
5	in	in	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	dark	dark	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	forest	forest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
11	white	white	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	men	man	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
13	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	tried	try	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	2	parataxis	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	years	year	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	obl	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	solve	solve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	14	xcomp	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	problem	problem	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obj	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
23	swiftness	swiftness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | present | Sound | strength |  | the dark forest |  | secretly *property* | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Product |
| 2 | **try** | present · perfect | white men |  |  |  | year |  | vn try-61.1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **solve** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | white men *not said here* | the problem of strength's swiftness |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent problem=Topic |

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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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