---
title: They had thought their people very strong; now they seemed like wild… — Wigwam stories told by North American Indians · tree and pragmatics
description: They had thought their people very strong; now they seemed like wild rabbits for weakness. Who acts: people. A sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, How He United the Five Nations, 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/pg73136/77/18/)

<!-- 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/) / [How He United the Five Nations](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/77/) / 18

# Wigwam stories told by North American Indians, How He United the Five Nations, sentence 18

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They had thought their people very strong; now they seemed like wild rabbits for weakness.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** people · **What happens:** think, seem · **To what, where:** people · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Wigwam stories told by North American Indians» by Mary Catherine Judd, How He United the Five Nations. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (people), 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:pg73136:77:18
# text = They had thought their people very strong; now they seemed like wild rabbits for weakness.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj:pass	_	_
2	had	have	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	thought	think	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	_
4	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl:agent	_	_
6	very	very	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	strong	strong	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	;	;	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
9	now	now	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	11	advmod	_	_
10	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	seemed	seem	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	ccomp	_	_
12	like	like	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	wild	wild	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	rabbits	rabbit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obl	_	_
15	for	for	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
16	weakness	weakness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past · perfect · passive | people's people | people |  |  |  |  | vn consider-29.9-2 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent subject=Attribute clause=Theme |
| 2 | **seem** | past | people |  |  |  | now | like wild rabbits; for weakness | vn seem-109-1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .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 17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/77/17/)
- next →: [sentence 19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/77/19/)
- ↑ back to [How He United the Five Nations](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73136/77/)