---
title: The big, ugly toad, looking at her pudgy children, said: “The eldest… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: The big, ugly toad, looking at her pudgy children, said: “The eldest is always best.” Who acts: big ugly toad. 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 85

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The big, ugly toad, looking at her pudgy children, said: “The eldest is always best.”

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**Who acts:** big ugly toad · **What happens:** look, say, be · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (big ugly toad), 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:pg338:12:85
# text = The big, ugly toad, looking at her pudgy children, said: “The eldest is always best.”
1	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	5	det	_	_
2	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	ugly	ugly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	5	amod	_	_
5	toad	toad	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
6	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	_
7	looking	look	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	acl	_	_
8	at	at	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
9	her	her	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	pudgy	pudgy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	children	child	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	7	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
13	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	:	:	PUNCT	:	_	17	punct	_	_
15	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	17	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	The	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
17	eldest	eld	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	13	ccomp	_	_
18	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	20	cop	_	_
19	always	always	ADV	RB	PronType=Tot	20	advmod	_	_
20	best	well	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	17	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	13	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	13	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **look** | gerund | the big ugly toad *not said here* |  |  |  |  | at mother's pudgy children | vn peer-30.3 «NP V PP.theme»: agent=Agent at child=Theme |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the big ugly toad |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **is** *in a quote* | present |  |  |  |  |  | always, well *property* | tree rules |

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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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