---
title: The young Thunderbird spread its wings and began to float down throu… — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The young Thunderbird spread its wings and began to float down through the air. Who acts: young Thunderbird. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Thunderbirds. (no. 2.), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, Thunderbirds. (no. 2.), sentence 16

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The young Thunderbird spread its wings and began to float down through the air.

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**Who acts:** young Thunderbird · **What happens:** spread, begin, float down · **To what, where:** wings, air

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This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Thunderbirds. (no. 2.). The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (young Thunderbird), 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:pg76755:5:16
# text = The young Thunderbird spread its wings and began to float down through the air.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	Thunderbird	thunderbird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	spread	spread	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	its	its	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	6	nmod:poss	_	_
6	wings	wing	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	4	obj	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	began	begin	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
9	to	to	PART	TO	_	10	mark	_	_
10	float	float	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	8	xcomp	_	_
11	down	down	ADP	RP	_	10	compound:prt	_	_
12	through	through	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
14	air	air	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **spread** | past | the young Thunderbird | sash's wings |  |  |  |  | vn appear-48.1.1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location wing=Theme |
| 2 | **begin** | past | the young Thunderbird *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn begin-55.1-1-1 «NP V S\_INF»: agent=Agent clause=Eventuality |
| 3 | **float down** | to-infinitive | the young Thunderbird *not said here* |  |  | the air |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme through air=Trajectory |

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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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