---
title: The old people said, “Someone’s at the grave.” — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The old people said, “Someone’s at the grave.” Who acts: old people. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Nanabush and the Young Man and Wife. (no. 5.), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, Nanabush and the Young Man and Wife. (no. 5.), sentence 54

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The old people said, “Someone’s at the grave.”

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**Who acts:** old people · **What happens:** say · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Nanabush and the Young Man and Wife. (no. 5.). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old people), 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:pg76755:18:54
# text = The old people said, “Someone’s at the grave.”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	people	people	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nsubj	_	_
4	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	8	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	Someone	someone	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	8	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	4	ccomp	_	_
9	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	grave	grave	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the old people |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |

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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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