---
title: From some far distance was also the sound of the father's voice sing… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: From some far distance was also the sound of the father's voice singing a sad song. Who acts: voice. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, The Toad and the Boy, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, The Toad and the Boy, sentence 40

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From some far distance was also the sound of the father's voice singing a sad song.

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**Who acts:** voice · **What happens:** be, sing · **To what, where:** sound, sad song

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, The Toad and the Boy. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (voice), 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:pg338:12:40
# text = From some far distance was also the sound of the father's voice singing a sad song.
1	From	from	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	4	det	_	_
3	far	far	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	distance	distance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	obl	_	_
5	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
6	also	also	ADV	RB	_	8	advmod	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	sound	sound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
9	of	of	ADP	IN	_	13	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	father	father	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	's	's	PART	POS	_	11	case	_	_
13	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nmod	_	_
14	singing	sing	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	13	acl	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	sad	sad	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	song	song	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past |  | the sound |  |  |  | from some far distance; of the father's voice | tree rules |
| 2 | **sing** *speech: express* | gerund | the father's voice *not said here* | a sad song |  |  |  |  | vn sound\_emission-43.2 «PP.location V NP»: agent=Location song=Theme |

<!-- .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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