---
title: By some unknown cunning he swam the river and sought his way toward… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: By some unknown cunning he swam the river and sought his way toward the teepees. Who acts: sun. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iya, the Camp-eater, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Iya, the Camp-eater, sentence 103

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
By some unknown cunning he swam the river and sought his way toward the teepees.

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**Who acts:** sun · **What happens:** swim, seek · **To what, where:** river, way

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Iya, the Camp-eater. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (sun), 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:pg338:13:103
# text = By some unknown cunning he swam the river and sought his way toward the teepees.
1	By	by	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	4	det	_	_
3	unknown	unknown	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	cunning	cunning	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	swam	swim	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	river	river	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	10	cc	_	_
10	sought	seek	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	6	conj	_	_
11	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	12	nmod:poss	_	_
12	way	way	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obj	_	_
13	toward	toward	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
14	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	15	det	_	_
15	teepees	teepee	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	10	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **swim** | past | sun | the river |  |  |  | by some unknown cunning | vn run-51.3.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme river=Trajectory |
| 2 | **seek** | past | sun *not said here* | sun's way |  |  |  | toward the teepees | vn hunt-35.1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent way=Theme |

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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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