---
title: They use sprigs of it at their feasts, and often burn it to destroy… — Legends of the Northwest · tree and pragmatics
description: They use sprigs of it at their feasts, and often burn it to destroy the power of evil spirits. Who acts: Dakotas. A sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4, 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/pg8122/21/5/)

<!-- 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/) / [Legends of the Northwest](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8122/) / [In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8122/21/) / 5

# Legends of the Northwest, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4, sentence 5

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
They use sprigs of it at their feasts, and often burn it to destroy the power of evil spirits.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Dakotas · **What happens:** use, burn, destroy · **To what, where:** sprigs, feasts, shrub, power

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «Legends of the Northwest» by Hanford Lennox Gordon, In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Dakotas), 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:pg8122:21:5
# text = They use sprigs of it at their feasts, and often burn it to destroy the power of evil spirits.
1	They	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	use	use	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	sprigs	sprig	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obj	_	_
4	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nmod	_	_
6	at	at	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	feasts	feast	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	2	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
11	often	often	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
12	burn	burn	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	2	conj	_	_
13	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	obj	_	_
14	to	to	PART	TO	_	15	mark	_	_
15	destroy	destroy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
16	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	power	power	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obj	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	evil	evil	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	amod	_	_
20	spirits	spirit	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **use** | present | Dakotas *= dakota* | sprigs of shrub |  | Dakotas's feasts |  |  | vn eat-39.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent sprig=Patient |
| 2 | **burn** | present | Dakotas *= dakota* *not said here* | shrub |  |  |  | often *property* | vn light\_emission-43.1 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **destroy** | to-infinitive | Dakotas *= dakota* *not said here* | the power of evil spirits |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent power=Patient |

<!-- .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:** «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.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8122/21/4/)
- next →: [sentence 6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8122/21/6/)
- ↑ back to [In the Measure of Hiawatha, part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8122/21/)