---
title: He could not do anything except to remain very still. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: He could not do anything except to remain very still. Who acts: John. 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 7

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He could not do anything except to remain very still.

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**Who acts:** John · **What happens:** not do, remain · **To what, where:** anything

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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 (John), 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:pg76755:5:7
# text = He could not do anything except to remain very still.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	could	could	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	4	advmod	_	_
4	do	do	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	anything	anything	PRON	NN	Number=Sing|PronType=Ind	4	obj	_	_
6	except	except	ADP	IN	_	8	mark	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	remain	remain	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	acl	_	_
9	very	very	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	_
10	still	still	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
11	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **do** | could | John | anything |  |  |  |  | vn act-114-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent anything=Eventuality |
| 2 | **remain** | to-infinitive | John *not said here* | anything *not said here* |  |  | still |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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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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