---
title: The fourth man came before Nanabush and said, “I would like to live… — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The fourth man came before Nanabush and said, “I would like to live forever.” Who acts: fourth man. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Nanabush and the Four Men. (no. 4.), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, Nanabush and the Four Men. (no. 4.), sentence 25

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The fourth man came before Nanabush and said, “I would like to live forever.”

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**Who acts:** fourth man · **What happens:** come, say, like, live · **To what, where:** Nanabush · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Nanabush and the Four Men. (no. 4.). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (fourth man), 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:pg76755:17:25
# text = The fourth man came before Nanabush and said, “I would like to live forever.”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	fourth	fourth	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|NumForm=Word|NumType=Ord	3	amod	_	_
3	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	before	before	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	Nanabush	Nanabush	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	13	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	13	nsubj	_	_
12	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	13	aux	_	_
13	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	ccomp	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	live	live	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	xcomp	_	_
16	forever	forever	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come** | past | the fourth man |  |  | Nanabush |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme before nanabush=Location |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the fourth man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 3 | **like** *in a quote* | would | the fourth man *= man* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 4 | **live** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | the fourth man *= man* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | forever *property* | vn exist-47.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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:** «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Project Gutenberg book 76755 (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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