---
title: They began to speak to each other. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They began to speak to each other. Who acts: men. 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 29

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They began to speak to each other.

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**Who acts:** men · **What happens:** begin, speak · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (men), 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:pg76755:28:29
# text = They began to speak to each other.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	to	to	PART	TO	_	4	mark	_	_
4	speak	speak	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	2	xcomp	_	_
5	to	to	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
6	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	4	obl	_	_
7	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	fixed	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **begin** | past | men *= man* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 2 | **speak** *speech: other* | to-infinitive | men *= man* *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to each | vn talk-37.5 «NP V PP.co-agent»: agent=Agent to each=Co-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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