---
title: Though asleep, his ear was ever alert. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: Though asleep, his ear was ever alert. Who acts: ear. 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 75

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Though asleep, his ear was ever alert.

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**Who acts:** ear · **What happens:** be

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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 (ear), 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:pg338:13:75
# text = Though asleep, his ear was ever alert.
1	Though	though	SCONJ	IN	_	2	mark	_	_
2	asleep	asleep	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	advcl	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	ear	ear	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	8	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	8	cop	_	_
7	ever	ever	ADV	RB	PronType=Ind	8	advmod	_	_
8	alert	alert	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	8	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | chieftain's ear |  |  |  | ever | alert *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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