---
title: I can neither freeze him nor starve him. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: I can neither freeze him nor starve him. Who acts: I. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXXVII. the North Wind’s Defeat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XXXVII. the North Wind’s Defeat, sentence 40

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I can neither freeze him nor starve him.

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**Who acts:** I · **What happens:** freeze, starve · **To what, where:** wind

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXXVII. the North Wind’s Defeat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (I), 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:pg73136:62:40
# text = I can neither freeze him nor starve him.
1	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	neither	neither	ADV	RB	_	4	advmod	_	_
4	freeze	freeze	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	obj	_	_
6	nor	nor	CCONJ	CC	Polarity=Neg	7	cc	_	_
7	starve	starve	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
8	him	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **freeze** | can | I | wind |  |  |  | neither *property* | vn other\_cos-45.4-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Patient he=Result |
| 2 | **starve** | infinitive | I *not said here* | wind |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

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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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