---
title: Nanabush did have a wife once, but only one child which was a girl. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: Nanabush did have a wife once, but only one child which was a girl. Who acts: Nanabush, one child. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Nanabush. (no. 6.), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, Nanabush. (no. 6.), sentence 3

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Nanabush did have a wife once, but only one child which was a girl.

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**Who acts:** Nanabush, one child · **What happens:** have, be · **To what, where:** wife, girl

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This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Nanabush. (no. 6.). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nanabush, one child), 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:pg76755:22:3
# text = Nanabush did have a wife once, but only one child which was a girl.
1	Nanabush	Nanabush	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	nsubj	_	_
2	did	do	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	aux	_	_
3	have	have	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	once	once	ADV	RB	NumForm=Word|NumType=Mult	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
8	but	but	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
9	only	only	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	11	nummod	_	_
11	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	nsubj	_	_
12	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	15	nsubj	_	_
13	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **have** | past · do-support | Nanabush | a wife |  |  |  | once *property* | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent wife=Patient |
| 2 | **is a** | past | one child | a girl |  |  |  | which *nsubj* | tree rules |

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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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