---
title: He thought “this can’t be my wife, she’s too old. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He thought “this can’t be my wife, she’s too old. Who acts: place, this, wife. 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 23

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He thought “this can’t be my wife, she’s too old.

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**Who acts:** place, this, wife · **What happens:** think, not be, be · **To what, where:** wife · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (place, this, 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:pg76755:5:23
# text = He thought “this can’t be my wife, she’s too old.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	thought	think	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	9	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	this	this	PRON	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	9	nsubj	_	_
5	ca	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	9	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	n’t	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	9	advmod	_	_
7	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	cop	_	_
8	my	my	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Sing|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	9	nmod:poss	_	_
9	wife	wife	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
11	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	’s	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
13	too	too	ADV	RB	_	14	advmod	_	_
14	old	old	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **think** *speech: other* | past | place |  |  |  |  |  | vn focus-87.1-1 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **not** **is a** *in a quote* | can | this | my wife |  |  |  | my *nmod:poss* | tree rules |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present | wife |  |  |  |  | old *property* | 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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