---
title: But the chickens were only crows, and they flew away. — The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo I… · tree and pragmatics
description: But the chickens were only crows, and they flew away. Who acts: chickens. A sentence of «The man who married the moon, and other Pueblo Indian folk-stories» by Charles Fletcher Lummis, The Coyote, 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 Coyote, sentence 32

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But the chickens were only crows, and they flew away.

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**Who acts:** chickens · **What happens:** be, fly away · **To what, where:** crows

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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 Coyote. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (chickens), 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:pg77804:33:32
# text = But the chickens were only crows, and they flew away.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	chickens	chicken	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	cop	_	_
5	only	only	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	crows	crow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	10	punct	_	_
8	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
10	flew	fly	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	acl:relcl	_	_
11	away	away	ADV	RB	_	10	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | the chickens | crows |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **fly away** | past | chickens *= chicken* | crows *not said here* |  |  |  | away *property* | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location crow=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:** «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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