---
title: He started singing one of his songs which pleased all the ducks. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He started singing one of his songs which pleased all the ducks. 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 29

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He started singing one of his songs which pleased all the ducks.

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**Who acts:** Nanabush · **What happens:** start, sing · **To what, where:** one

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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:pg76755:25:29
# text = He started singing one of his songs which pleased all the ducks.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	started	start	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	2	xcomp	_	_
4	one	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	3	obj	_	_
5	of	of	ADP	IN	_	7	case	_	_
6	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	7	nmod:poss	_	_
7	songs	song	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	nmod	_	_
8	which	which	PRON	WDT	PronType=Rel	9	nsubj	_	_
9	pleased	pleased	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	7	acl:relcl	_	_
10	all	all	DET	PDT	PronType=Tot	12	det:predet	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	ducks	duck	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **start** | past | Nanabush |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | Nanabush *not said here* | one of Nanabush's songs |  |  |  | all ducks *obj* | vn performance-26.7-1 «NP V NP.beneficiary NP»: agent=Agent one=Beneficiary duck=Theme |
| 3 | **sing** |  | Nanabush |  |  |  |  |  | nom song «communication intransitive»: poss=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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