---
title: It would be cowardly to leave a baby in the wild wood where prowl th… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: It would be cowardly to leave a baby in the wild wood where prowl the hungry wolves!” answered an elderly man. Who acts: spirit. 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 22

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It would be cowardly to leave a baby in the wild wood where prowl the hungry wolves!” answered an elderly man.

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**Who acts:** spirit · **What happens:** be, leave, answer · **To what, where:** baby, wild wood, elderly man · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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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 (spirit), 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:pg338:13:22
# text = It would be cowardly to leave a baby in the wild wood where prowl the hungry wolves!” answered an elderly man.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	4	nsubj	_	_
2	would	would	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	4	aux	_	_
3	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	cop	_	_
4	cowardly	cowardly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
5	to	to	PART	TO	_	6	mark	_	_
6	leave	leave	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	advcl	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	baby	baby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
9	in	in	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
11	wild	wild	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	compound	_	_
12	wood	wood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
13	where	where	ADV	WRB	PronType=Rel	14	advmod	_	_
14	prowl	prowl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	conj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	hungry	hungry	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	wolves	wolf	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
19	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
20	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
21	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
22	elderly	elderly	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	man	man	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | would | spirit |  |  |  |  | cowardly *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **leave** | to-infinitive | spirit *not said here* | a baby |  | the wild wood and prowl |  |  | vn sustain-55.6-1 «NP V NP ADJ»: agent=Agent baby=Theme wolf=Attribute |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | past |  |  | a elderly man |  |  |  | vn reciprocate-112-1 «NP V PP»: agent=Agent man=Eventuality |

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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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