---
title: In a ring around the fire hopped the mice, each bouncing hard on his… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: In a ring around the fire hopped the mice, each bouncing hard on his two hind feet. Who acts: each. 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 32

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In a ring around the fire hopped the mice, each bouncing hard on his two hind feet.

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**Who acts:** each · **What happens:** hop, bounce · **To what, where:** mice, ring, two hind feet

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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 (each), 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:pg338:11:32
# text = In a ring around the fire hopped the mice, each bouncing hard on his two hind feet.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	3	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	ring	ring	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
4	around	around	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
6	fire	fire	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	nmod	_	_
7	hopped	hop	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	mice	mouse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	each	each	DET	DT	PronType=Tot	12	nsubj	_	_
12	bouncing	bounce	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	7	advcl	_	_
13	hard	hard	ADV	RB	Degree=Pos	12	advmod	_	_
14	on	on	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
15	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	18	nmod:poss	_	_
16	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
17	hind	hind	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hop** | past |  | the mice |  | a ring around the fire |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-1 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Initial\_Location mouse=Theme |
| 2 | **bounce** | gerund | each |  |  | plain's two hind feet |  | hard *property* | vn run-51.3.2-2 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme on foot=Trajectory |

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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:** «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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