---
title: For a short time it was a most pleasant pastime to smoke willow bark… — Old Indian Legends · tree and pragmatics
description: For a short time it was a most pleasant pastime to smoke willow bark and to eat from the magic bags. Who acts: rabbit. 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 68

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For a short time it was a most pleasant pastime to smoke willow bark and to eat from the magic bags.

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**Who acts:** rabbit · **What happens:** be, smoke, eat · **To what, where:** pleasant pastime, willow bark, magic bags

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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 (rabbit), 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:pg338:14:68
# text = For a short time it was a most pleasant pastime to smoke willow bark and to eat from the magic bags.
1	For	for	ADP	IN	_	4	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	4	det	_	_
3	short	short	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
5	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	10	nsubj	_	_
6	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	10	cop	_	_
7	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
8	most	most	ADV	RBS	Degree=Sup	9	advmod	_	_
9	pleasant	pleasant	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	10	amod	_	_
10	pastime	pastime	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	0	root	_	_
11	to	to	PART	TO	_	12	mark	_	_
12	smoke	smoke	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	10	acl	_	_
13	willow	willow	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	compound	_	_
14	bark	bark	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	12	obj	_	_
15	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
16	to	to	PART	TO	_	17	mark	_	_
17	eat	eat	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	conj	_	_
18	from	from	ADP	IN	_	21	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
20	magic	magic	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	21	compound	_	_
21	bags	bag	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	17	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is a** | past | rabbit | a pleasant pastime |  |  | time |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **smoke** | to-infinitive |  | willow bark |  |  |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1-1 «NP V NP.source»: agent=Agent bark=Source |
| 3 | **eat** | to-infinitive |  |  |  | the magic bags |  |  | vn eat-39.1-1 «NP V PP.source»: agent=Agent from bag=Source |

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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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