---
title: He is chief of all kinds of ducks,” the duck replied. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He is chief of all kinds of ducks,” the duck replied. Who acts: Nanabush, duck. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Nanabush and the Ducks. (no. 8.), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, Nanabush and the Ducks. (no. 8.), sentence 10

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He is chief of all kinds of ducks,” the duck replied.

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**Who acts:** Nanabush, duck · **What happens:** be, reply · **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. (no. 8.). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Nanabush, duck), 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:pg76755:25:10
# text = He is chief of all kinds of ducks,” the duck replied.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	chief	chief	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	all	all	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	6	det	_	_
6	kinds	kind	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
7	of	of	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
8	ducks	duck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	3	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	3	punct	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	_
13	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | present | Nanabush |  |  |  |  | of all kinds of ducks; chief *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **reply** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past | the duck |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: 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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