---
title: “Be still!” said father Iktomi to his children. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: “Be still!” said father Iktomi to his children. Who acts: father. 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 47

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“Be still!” said father Iktomi to his children.

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**Who acts:** father · **What happens:** be, say · **To what, where:** children · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (father), 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:pg338:10:47
# text = “Be still!” said father Iktomi to his children.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Be	be	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
3	still	still	ADV	RB	_	2	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
5	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
6	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	nsubj	_	_
8	Iktomi	Iktomi	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	7	appos	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
11	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	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 | **be** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  | still |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: express* | past | father |  | father's children |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V PP.recipient S-Quote»: agent=Agent to child=Recipient clause=Topic |

<!-- .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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