---
title: He did not know how to do it. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He did not know how to do it. Who acts: Nanabush. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Nanabush and the Ducks. (modern.) (no. 1.), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, Nanabush and the Ducks. (modern.) (no. 1.), sentence 5

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He did not know how to do it.

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**Who acts:** Nanabush · **What happens:** not know, do · **To what, where:** bay · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Nanabush and the Ducks. (modern.) (no. 1.). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nanabush), 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:pg76755:2:5
# text = He did not know how to do it.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	know	know	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	7	advmod	_	_
6	to	to	PART	TO	_	7	mark	_	_
7	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	ccomp	_	_
8	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|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 | **not** **know** | past · do-support | Nanabush |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 2 | **do** | to-infinitive |  | bay |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Eventuality |

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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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