---
title: He was scarce over the great high hills when he heard the shrieking… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: He was scarce over the great high hills when he heard the shrieking of a human child. 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 6

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He was scarce over the great high hills when he heard the shrieking of a human child.

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**Who acts:** MANSTIN · **What happens:** be, hear, shriek · **To what, where:** great high hills, shrieking, human child

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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:pg338:14:6
# text = He was scarce over the great high hills when he heard the shrieking of a human child.
1	He	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
2	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	cop	_	_
3	scarce	scarce	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
4	over	over	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
5	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
6	great	great	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
7	high	high	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	8	amod	_	_
8	hills	hill	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	3	obl	_	_
9	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	11	advmod	_	_
10	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	nsubj	_	_
11	heard	hear	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	parataxis	_	_
12	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	shrieking	shrieking	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	of	of	ADP	IN	_	17	case	_	_
15	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	17	det	_	_
16	human	human	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	17	amod	_	_
17	child	child	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	nmod	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | past | MANSTIN |  |  | the great high hills |  | scarce *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **hear** | past | MANSTIN | the shrieking of a human child |  |  |  |  | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V S»: agent=Experiencer shrieking=Stimulus |
| 3 | **shriek** |  |  | a human child |  |  |  |  | nom shrieking «communication transitive»: of=patient |

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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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