---
title: “Mother, listen and tell me if this child is an evil spirit come to… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: “Mother, listen and tell me if this child is an evil spirit come to destroy our camp!” she whispered loud. Who acts: Mother, child. 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 83

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“Mother, listen and tell me if this child is an evil spirit come to destroy our camp!” she whispered loud.

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**Who acts:** Mother, child · **What happens:** listen, tell, be, come, destroy, whisper · **To what, where:** Mother, evil spirit, camp · **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 (Mother, child), 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:pg338:13:83
# text = “Mother, listen and tell me if this child is an evil spirit come to destroy our camp!” she whispered loud.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
3	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	2	punct	_	_
4	listen	listen	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	6	cc	_	_
6	tell	tell	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	4	conj	_	_
7	me	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	6	iobj	_	_
8	if	if	SCONJ	IN	_	14	mark	_	_
9	this	this	DET	DT	Number=Sing|PronType=Dem	10	det	_	_
10	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	nsubj	_	_
11	is	be	AUX	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	14	cop	_	_
12	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	14	det	_	_
13	evil	evil	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
14	spirit	spirit	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	ccomp	_	_
15	come	come	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	ccomp	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	destroy	destroy	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	15	xcomp	_	_
18	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	19	nmod:poss	_	_
19	camp	camp	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	17	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
20	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
21	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	4	punct	_	_
22	she	she	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Fem|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	23	nsubj	_	_
23	whispered	whisper	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	4	parataxis	_	_
24	loud	loud	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	23	xcomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
25	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	4	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **listen** *in a quote* | infinitive | Mother |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **tell** *speech: assert* *in a quote* | infinitive | Mother *not said here* |  | Mother |  |  |  | vn transfer\_mesg-37.1.1-1-1 «NP V NP S\_INF»: agent=Agent i=Recipient clause=Topic |
| 3 | **is a** *a condition, not said to happen, in a quote* | present | this child | a evil spirit |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **come** *in a quote* | infinitive |  |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 5 | **destroy** *in a quote* | to-infinitive |  | our camp |  |  |  |  | vn destroy-44 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent camp=Patient |
| 6 | **whisper** *speech: assert* | past | mother |  |  |  |  | loud *property* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=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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