---
title: One day his wife said, “I would like to go and see my mother.” — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: One day his wife said, “I would like to go and see my mother.” Who acts: wife. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, The People Who Became Serpents., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, The People Who Became Serpents., sentence 20

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One day his wife said, “I would like to go and see my mother.”

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**Who acts:** wife · **What happens:** say, like, go, see · **To what, where:** mother · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, The People Who Became Serpents.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (wife), 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:pg76755:27:20
# text = One day his wife said, “I would like to go and see my mother.”
1	One	one	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	2	nummod	_	_
2	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl:unmarked	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
5	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
7	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
9	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	10	aux	_	_
10	like	like	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	ccomp	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	go	go	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	xcomp	_	_
13	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	14	cc	_	_
14	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	conj	_	_
15	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	16	nmod:poss	_	_
16	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	10	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 | man's wife |  |  |  | day |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent clause=Topic |
| 2 | **like** *in a quote* | would | man's wife *= wife* |  |  |  |  |  | vn want-32.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Pivot clause=Theme |
| 3 | **go** *not said to happen, in a quote* | to-infinitive | man's wife *= wife* *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn disappearance-48.2-1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 4 | **see** *in a quote* | infinitive | man's wife *= wife* *not said here* | my mother |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer mother=Stimulus |

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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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