---
title: In a laughing voice he hummed an Indian mother's lullaby, “A-boo! — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: In a laughing voice he hummed an Indian mother's lullaby, “A-boo! Who acts: giant. A sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Manstin, the Rabbit, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Old Indian Legends, Manstin, the Rabbit, sentence 12

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In a laughing voice he hummed an Indian mother's lullaby, “A-boo!

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**Who acts:** giant · **What happens:** laugh, hum · **To what, where:** lullaby, laughing voice

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This is a sentence of «Old Indian Legends» by Zitkala-Sa, Manstin, the Rabbit. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (giant), 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:pg338:14:12
# text = In a laughing voice he hummed an Indian mother's lullaby, “A-boo!
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	laughing	laugh	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	4	amod	_	_
4	voice	voice	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	_
5	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	nsubj	_	_
6	hummed	hum	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
7	an	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
8	Indian	Indian	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	9	amod	_	_
9	mother	mother	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	's	's	PART	POS	_	9	case	_	_
11	lullaby	lullaby	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
13	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	16	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
14	A	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	16	det	_	SpaceAfter=No
15	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	14	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
16	boo	boo	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	!	!	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **laugh** | gerund |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn nonverbal\_expression-40.2 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 2 | **hum** | past | giant | a Indian mother's lullaby |  | a laughing voice |  | a boo *obl* | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent lullaby=Topic |

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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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