---
title: Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scam… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scamper away into the deep shadows of night. Who acts: sharp ears, people. 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 8

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Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scamper away into the deep shadows of night.

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**Who acts:** sharp ears, people · **What happens:** hear, scamper, shadow · **To what, where:** strange footfalls, deep shadows, night

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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 (sharp ears, people), 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:pg338:11:8
# text = Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scamper away into the deep shadows of night.
1	Then	then	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	6	advmod	_	_
2	when	when	SCONJ	WRB	_	6	mark	_	_
3	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
4	sharp	sharp	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	ears	ear	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
6	hear	hear	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	any	any	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	9	det	_	_
8	strange	strange	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	footfalls	footfall	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	_
10	nigh	nigh	ADV	RB	_	12	advmod	_	_
11	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	12	nsubj	_	_
12	scamper	scamper	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
13	away	away	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
14	into	into	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	deep	deep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	shadows	shadow	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obl	_	_
18	of	of	ADP	IN	_	19	case	_	_
19	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **hear** | present | people's sharp ears | any strange footfalls |  | the deep shadows of night | then | away *property* | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer footfall=Stimulus |
| 2 | **scamper** |  | people |  |  |  |  | nigh *property* | tree rules |
| 3 | **shadow** |  |  | night |  |  |  |  | nom shadow «state transitive»: of=patient |

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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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