---
title: He never saw an axe before. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He never saw an axe before. Who acts: younger. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, The Indian Boy Who Married a King’s Daughter., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, The Indian Boy Who Married a King’s Daughter., sentence 23

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He never saw an axe before.

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**Who acts:** younger · **What happens:** not see · **To what, where:** axe

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This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, The Indian Boy Who Married a King’s Daughter.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (younger), 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:pg76755:28:23
# text = He never saw an axe before.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	3	advmod	_	_
3	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	axe	axe	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	before	before	ADV	RB	_	3	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **see** | past | younger *= young* | a axe |  |  |  | before *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer axe=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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