---
title: He struck a rock; it broke very quickly. — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: He struck a rock; it broke very quickly. Who acts: sun, rock. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXXVIII. a Rip Van Winkle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, XXXVIII. a Rip Van Winkle, sentence 71

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He struck a rock; it broke very quickly.

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**Who acts:** sun, rock · **What happens:** strike, break · **To what, where:** rock

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This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, XXXVIII. a Rip Van Winkle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sun, rock), 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:pg73136:63:71
# text = He struck a rock; it broke very quickly.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	struck	strike	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	rock	rock	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
6	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	broke	break	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
8	very	very	ADV	RB	_	9	advmod	_	_
9	quickly	quickly	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **strike** | past | sun | a rock |  |  |  |  | vn hit-18.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent rock=Patient |
| 2 | **break** | past | rock |  |  |  |  | quickly *property* | vn hurt-40.8.3-1-1 «NP V»: agent=Patient |

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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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