---
title: “Well,” said the Chief Duck, “when is this big dance coming off?” — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: “Well,” said the Chief Duck, “when is this big dance coming off?” Who acts: Chief Duck, big dance. 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 20

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“Well,” said the Chief Duck, “when is this big dance coming off?”

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**Who acts:** Chief Duck, big dance · **What happens:** say, be, come off · **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 (Chief Duck, big dance), 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:pg76755:25:20
# text = “Well,” said the Chief Duck, “when is this big dance coming off?”
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=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	Chief	Chief	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	compound	_	_
8	Duck	Duck	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
10	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	15	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	15	advmod	_	_
12	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	15	cop	_	_
13	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	15	det	_	_
14	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	dance	dance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	appos	_	_
16	coming	come	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	15	acl	_	_
17	off	off	ADP	RP	_	16	compound:prt	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **say** *speech: ask* | past | the Chief Duck |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | this big dance |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 3 | **come off** *in a quote* | gerund | this big dance *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn occur-48.3-2 «NP V ADV»: agent=Theme |

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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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