---
title: He asked the duck, “Is your Chief Duck here at any place?” — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He asked the duck, “Is your Chief Duck here at any place?” 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 7

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He asked the duck, “Is your Chief Duck here at any place?”

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**Who acts:** Nanabush · **What happens:** ask, be · **To what, where:** duck, place, Chief · **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:pg76755:25:7
# text = He asked the duck, “Is your Chief Duck here at any place?”
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	asked	ask	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	duck	duck	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	9	punct	_	_
6	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	Is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	9	cop	_	_
8	your	your	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Person=2|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	Chief	Chief	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	nmod	_	_
10	Duck	Duck	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	9	flat	_	_
11	here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	2	ccomp	_	_
12	at	at	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	14	det	_	_
14	place	place	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **ask** *speech: ask* | past | Nanabush |  | the duck | any place |  |  | vn inquire-37.1.2 «NP V NP.recipient»: agent=Agent duck=Recipient |
| 2 | **is a** *in a quote* | present |  | your Chief |  |  |  | your *nmod:poss* | 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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