---
title: Tiny little field mice were singing and dancing in a circle to the b… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Tiny little field mice were singing and dancing in a circle to the boom-boom of a wee, wee drum. Who acts: Tiny little field mice. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Dance in a Buffalo Skull, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Dance in a Buffalo Skull, sentence 18

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Tiny little field mice were singing and dancing in a circle to the boom-boom of a wee, wee drum.

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**Who acts:** Tiny little field mice · **What happens:** sing, dance, boom · **To what, where:** circle, wee

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Dance in a Buffalo Skull. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Tiny little field mice), 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:pg338:11:18
# text = Tiny little field mice were singing and dancing in a circle to the boom-boom of a wee, wee drum.
1	Tiny	tiny	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
2	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
3	field	field	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	compound	_	_
4	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
5	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
7	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
8	dancing	dance	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	6	conj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	circle	circle	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
12	to	to	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
13	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
14	boom	boom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	boom	boom	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	19	det	_	_
19	wee	wee	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
21	wee	wee	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	22	amod	_	_
22	drum	drum	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sing** *speech: express* | past · progressive | Tiny little field mice |  |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «NP.location V PP.theme»: agent=Location |
| 2 | **dance** | gerund | Tiny little field mice *not said here* |  |  | a circle to the boom boom of a wee and wee drum |  |  | vn modes\_of\_being\_with\_motion-47.3 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme in circle=Location |
| 3 | **boom** |  |  | a wee |  |  |  |  | nom boom «event transitive»: of=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.

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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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