---
title: In the largest teepee sat a young mother wrapping red porcupine quil… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: In the largest teepee sat a young mother wrapping red porcupine quills about the long fringes of a buckskin cushion. Who acts: young mother. 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 5

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In the largest teepee sat a young mother wrapping red porcupine quills about the long fringes of a buckskin cushion.

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**Who acts:** young mother · **What happens:** sit, wrap · **To what, where:** young mother, largest teepee, red porcupine quills

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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 (young mother), 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:pg338:12:5
# text = In the largest teepee sat a young mother wrapping red porcupine quills about the long fringes of a buckskin cushion.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	largest	large	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	4	amod	_	_
4	teepee	teepee	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
5	sat	sit	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
6	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	young	young	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obj	_	_
9	wrapping	wrap	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	8	acl	_	_
10	red	red	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
11	porcupine	porcupine	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	quills	quill	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obj	_	_
13	about	about	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
15	long	long	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	16	amod	_	_
16	fringes	fringe	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	9	obl	_	_
17	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
18	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
19	buckskin	buckskin	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	compound	_	_
20	cushion	cushion	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** | past |  | a young mother |  | the largest teepee |  |  | vn spatial\_configuration-47.6-1 «NP V NP.theme PP»: agent=Agent mother=Theme in teepee=Location |
| 2 | **wrap** | gerund | a young mother *not said here* | red porcupine quills |  |  |  | about the long fringes of a buckskin cushion | vn spray-9.7-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent quill=Theme about fringe=Destination |

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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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