---
title: “Well,” said Nanabush, “there is going to be a big dance.” — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Well,” said Nanabush, “there is going to be a big dance.” Who acts: Nanabush. 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 17

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“Well,” said Nanabush, “there is going to be a big dance.”

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**Who acts:** Nanabush · **What happens:** say, go, be · **To what, where:** big dance · **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), 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:pg76755:25:17
# text = “Well,” said Nanabush, “there is going to be a big dance.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Well	well	INTJ	UH	_	5	discourse	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	Nanabush	Nanabush	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
8	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	there	there	PRON	EX	PronType=Dem	11	expl	_	_
10	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	going	go	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	5	ccomp	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	16	mark	_	_
13	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	16	cop	_	_
14	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	dance	dance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	11	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	11	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 | Nanabush |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **go** *in a quote* | present · progressive |  |  |  | there |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **is a** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | a big dance |  |  |  |  | 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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