---
title: He bent his bow and the sinewy string twanged. — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He bent his bow and the sinewy string twanged. Who acts: MANSTIN. 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 15

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He bent his bow and the sinewy string twanged.

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**Who acts:** MANSTIN · **What happens:** bend, twang · **To what, where:** bow, sinewy string

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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 (MANSTIN), 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:pg338:14:15
# text = He bent his bow and the sinewy string twanged.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	2	nsubj	_	_
2	bent	bend	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
3	his	his	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	4	nmod:poss	_	_
4	bow	bow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	2	obj	_	_
5	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	8	cc	_	_
6	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
7	sinewy	sinewy	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	string	string	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	4	conj	_	_
9	twanged	twang	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	8	acl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	2	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **bend** | past | MANSTIN | MANSTIN's bow and the sinewy string |  |  |  |  | vn knead-26.5 «NP V NP.material»: agent=Agent bow=Material |
| 2 | **twang** | participle |  | the sinewy string *not said here* |  |  |  |  | vn manner\_speaking-37.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |

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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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