---
title: “Spirit of the buffalo!” squeaked a frightened mouse as he jumped ou… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: “Spirit of the buffalo!” squeaked a frightened mouse as he jumped out from a hole in the back part of the skull. Who acts: Spirit. 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 37

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“Spirit of the buffalo!” squeaked a frightened mouse as he jumped out from a hole in the back part of the skull.

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**Who acts:** Spirit · **What happens:** squeak, jump out · **To what, where:** frightened mouse, hole

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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 (Spirit), 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:pg338:11:37
# text = “Spirit of the buffalo!” squeaked a frightened mouse as he jumped out from a hole in the back part of the skull.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Spirit	Spirit	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
3	of	of	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
4	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
5	buffalo	buffalo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
7	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	2	punct	_	_
8	squeaked	squeak	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
10	frightened	frightened	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	mouse	mouse	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obj	_	_
12	as	as	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	14	nsubj	_	_
14	jumped	jump	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	advcl	_	_
15	out	out	ADP	RP	_	14	compound:prt	_	_
16	from	from	ADP	IN	_	18	case	_	_
17	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	hole	hole	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obl	_	_
19	in	in	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	22	det	_	_
21	back	back	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	compound	_	_
22	part	part	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	nmod	_	_
23	of	of	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
24	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
25	skull	skull	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	22	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **squeak** | past | Spirit of the buffalo | a frightened mouse |  |  |  |  | vn animal\_sounds-38 «NP V NP.theme»: agent=Agent mouse=Theme |
| 2 | **jump out** | past | Spirit |  |  | a hole in the back part of the skull |  |  | vn run-51.3.2-2-1 «NP V PP.location»: agent=Theme from hole=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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