---
title: The boy was very hungry, and picking up the snowbird bit a big piece… — The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo I… · tree and pragmatics
description: The boy was very hungry, and picking up the snowbird bit a big piece out of it. Who acts: boy. A sentence of «The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo Indian folk-stories» by Charles Fletcher Lummis, The Accursed Lake, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo Indian folk-stories, The Accursed Lake, sentence 45

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The boy was very hungry, and picking up the snowbird bit a big piece out of it.

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**Who acts:** boy · **What happens:** be, pick up, bite · **To what, where:** snowbird, big piece

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This is a sentence of «The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo Indian folk-stories» by Charles Fletcher Lummis, The Accursed Lake. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (boy), 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:pg77804:19:46
# text = The boy was very hungry, and picking up the snowbird bit a big piece out of it.
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	2	det	_	_
2	boy	boy	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
3	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	cop	_	_
4	very	very	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
8	picking	pick	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	12	nsubj	_	_
9	up	up	ADP	RP	_	8	compound:prt	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	snowbird	snowbird	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	bit	bite	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
14	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	15	amod	_	_
15	piece	piece	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
16	out	out	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
18	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | the boy |  |  |  |  | hungry *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **pick up** | gerund |  | the snowbird |  |  |  |  | vn discover-84-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent snowbird=Topic |
| 3 | **bite** | past |  | a big piece |  | snowbird |  |  | vn swat-18.2 «NP V NP PP.location»: agent=Agent piece=Patient out it=Location |

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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:** «The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo Indian folk-stories» by Charles Fletcher Lummis, Project Gutenberg book 77804 (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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