---
title: The big snail stretched himself across the river and the two boys go… — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: The big snail stretched himself across the river and the two boys got across. Who acts: big snail, two boys. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Ne-we-no-nah K’she Mŭh., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Ojibwa myths and tales, Ne-we-no-nah K’she Mŭh., sentence 22

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The big snail stretched himself across the river and the two boys got across.

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**Who acts:** big snail, two boys · **What happens:** stretch, get · **To what, where:** snail, river

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This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Ne-we-no-nah K’she Mŭh.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (big snail, two boys), 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:pg76755:7:22
# text = The big snail stretched himself across the river and the two boys got across.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
2	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	3	amod	_	_
3	snail	snail	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	_
4	stretched	stretch	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
5	himself	himself	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs|Reflex=Yes	4	obj	_	_
6	across	across	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	obl	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	13	cc	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
12	boys	boy	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	13	nsubj	_	_
13	got	get	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	conj	_	_
14	across	across	ADV	RB	_	13	advmod	_	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 | **stretch** | past | the big snail | snail |  | the river |  |  | vn bend-45.2 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent himself=Patient |
| 2 | **get** | past | the two boys |  |  |  |  | across *property* | vn comprehend-87.2-1 «NP V S\_ING»: agent=Experiencer |

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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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