---
title: They took the girl away as they were told to bring her. — Ojibwa myths and tales · tree and pragmatics
description: They took the girl away as they were told to bring her. Who acts: chiefs. A sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Ojibwa and Mohawk. (no. 2.), with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76755/9/23/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Ojibwa myths and tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76755/) / [Ojibwa and Mohawk. (no. 2.)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76755/9/) / 23

# Ojibwa myths and tales, Ojibwa and Mohawk. (no. 2.), sentence 23

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They took the girl away as they were told to bring her.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** chiefs · **What happens:** take away, tell, bring · **To what, where:** girl, chiefs · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Ojibwa myths and tales» by Geo. E. Laidlaw, Ojibwa and Mohawk. (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 (chiefs), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg76755:9:23
# text = They took the girl away as they were told to bring her.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	took	take	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
4	girl	girl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	away	away	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	_
6	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	9	mark	_	_
7	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	9	nsubj:pass	_	_
8	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	9	aux:pass	_	_
9	told	tell	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	2	advcl	_	_
10	to	to	PART	TO	_	11	mark	_	_
11	bring	bring	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	9	xcomp	_	_
12	her	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **take away** | past | chiefs *= chief* | the girl |  |  |  | away *property* | vn remove-10.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent girl=Theme |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* | past · passive |  | chiefs *= chief* |  |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: subject=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **bring** *not said to happen* | to-infinitive | chiefs *= chief* *not said here* |  | girl |  |  |  | vn bring-11.3-1 «NP V NP ADVP»: agent=Instrument she=Destination |

<!-- .note -->
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.

<!-- div src -->

**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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76755/9/22/)
- next →: [sentence 24](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76755/9/24/)
- ↑ back to [Ojibwa and Mohawk. (no. 2.)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg76755/9/)