---
title: Can they be so modified? — Legends of the Northwest · tree and pragmatics
description: Can they be so modified? A sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, The Sea-gull, the Ojibwa Legend of the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior., with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Legends of the Northwest, The Sea-gull, the Ojibwa Legend of the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior., sentence 72

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Can they be so modified?

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**What happens:** modify · **To what, where:** language

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This is a sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, The Sea-gull, the Ojibwa Legend of the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior.. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: 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:pg8122:2:74
# text = Can they be so modified?
1	Can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
2	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj:pass	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	aux:pass	_	_
4	so	so	ADV	RB	_	5	advmod	_	_
5	modified	modify	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	?	?	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **modify** | can · passive |  | language |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: subject=Patient |

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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:** «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, Project Gutenberg book 8122 (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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