---
title: While the hunters were questioning whether or no they should carry i… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: While the hunters were questioning whether or no they should carry it home, the wee Indian baby kept up his little howl. Who acts: hunters, wee Indian baby, ho. 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 8

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While the hunters were questioning whether or no they should carry it home, the wee Indian baby kept up his little howl.

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**Who acts:** hunters, wee Indian baby, ho · **What happens:** question, carry, keep up, howl · **To what, where:** babe, little howl

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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 (hunters, wee Indian baby, ho), 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:pg338:13:8
# text = While the hunters were questioning whether or no they should carry it home, the wee Indian baby kept up his little howl.
1	While	while	SCONJ	IN	_	5	mark	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	hunters	hunter	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	nsubj	_	_
4	were	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	questioning	question	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	advcl	_	_
6	whether	whether	SCONJ	IN	ExtPos=SCONJ	11	mark	_	_
7	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	6	fixed	_	_
8	no	no	INTJ	UH	Polarity=Neg	11	discourse	_	_
9	they	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
10	should	should	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	11	aux	_	_
11	carry	carry	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	advcl	_	_
12	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obj	_	_
13	home	home	ADV	RB	_	11	advmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	5	punct	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
16	wee	wee	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
17	Indian	Indian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	18	amod	_	_
18	baby	baby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
19	kept	keep	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	18	acl	_	_
20	up	up	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	_
21	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	23	nmod:poss	_	_
22	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	amod	_	_
23	howl	howl	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	18	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **question** *speech: other* | past · progressive | the hunters |  |  |  |  |  | vn interrogate-37.1.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **carry** | should | hunters *= hunter* | babe |  |  |  | home *property* | vn carry-11.4 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent it=Theme |
| 3 | **keep up** | participle | the wee Indian baby *not said here* | ho's little howl |  |  |  |  | vn sustain-55.6 «NP V NP PP.instrument»: agent=Agent howl=Theme |
| 4 | **howl** |  | ho |  |  |  |  |  | nom howl «communication intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
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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