---
title: “Ho-wo,” he replied, still working his short arms. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: “Ho-wo,” he replied, still working his short arms. Who acts: Patkasa. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Turtle, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Iktomi and the Turtle, sentence 27

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“Ho-wo,” he replied, still working his short arms.

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**Who acts:** Patkasa · **What happens:** reply, work · **To what, where:** short arms

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iktomi and the Turtle. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Patkasa), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg338:10:27
# text = “Ho-wo,” he replied, still working his short arms.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	8	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Ho	Ho	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	wo	will	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	8	aux	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
7	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	8	nsubj	_	_
8	replied	reply	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	still	still	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	_
11	working	work	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	8	advcl	_	_
12	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	14	nmod:poss	_	_
13	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	arms	arm	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **reply** *speech: assert* | future | Patkasa |  |  |  |  |  | vn respond-113 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **work** | gerund | Patkasa *not said here* | Patkasa's short arms |  |  | still |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent arm=Material |

<!-- .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.

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**Text:** «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Project Gutenberg book 338 (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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